A Tale As Old As Time
by Sparkle E. Slugg
Summary: It's six years after the last great battle, and the world has divided. The last of the three, the brightest witch of her age enters the previously impenetrable fortress that holds the darkest wizards in Europe, and finds more than she thought she would.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: No, I own nothing of Harry Potter. Oh man, if only I did! Ah well. **

A lot can happen in six years

People meet each other and get married in six years.

Children are born and take a rough sort of human shape.

Countries form, disband, and rise up against themselves.

People die.

But, of course, some things stay stubbornly the same.

Like this field. In the six years (six whole, entire, long years) that had gone by, it was exactly the same as it'd been when she'd stood here last. As if six years hadn't passed. As if not even a moment had passed since she had stood here, slowly dripping blood from wounds she didn't feel, too sad to even scream.

Hermione Granger stood at the edge of a burnt black field that stretched from the road behind her to the edge of the charred and black forest that stood about half a mile away. There was a great muddy lake to her right that rippled slightly. And just to the right was the great pile. If she titled her head to the side and squinted, she could still imagine it smoldering.

No, it had stayed exactly the same. Well, except for all the fires. And the… the mess.

Hermione sighed, and slowly rubbed her arms.

She should go. It had seemed like a good idea to come back, knowing that this was on the way. It was good for her, she supposed. Closure, or something. But it was hard. Still hard, even so many years later.

The square white car groaned into life as she nudged it into gear, and sped away from the field as fast as she could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: If you really are that curious about whether or not I really own any of this, go to the first chapter. Which you should have read anyway! Slacker!**

"She's late," spoke a quiet voice from the shadows.

"I know," growled the man at the desk, running a hand through his graying hair. "But..." he sighed "Nothing I can do will make her come sooner."

The shadowy figure stirred slightly in its chair "How do you know she'll agree to it?"

"I have known her since she was in her third year. I have every reason to have absolute faith in her"

The figure coughed roughly, great whoops that shook their body. The man said nothing. He knew that this weakness embarrassed his guest, and to acknowledge it would only hurt them.

Finally the guest collected themselves and rasped, "Do you really think she'll come, Remus?"

He looked at the shape, but his gazed was unfocused, as though he was really gazing at something beyond it. "I think she will. But it'll take some time for her to arrive. She has... a lot standing between her and this."

The shadows chuckled, and stood. "You get to be more and more like Dumbledore every day, you know."

"Do I?" Remus Lupin said, smiling at the paper he'd turned his attention to as the figure brushed past him and out the door. "Oh, good."

He got to his feet after a moment, carrying the slip of paper with him. He examined the chair that his guest had vacated, as if looking for some trace left behind.

Of course there was nothing there. They were always very careful to leave no sign after they'd left.

Wearily, Remus Lupin sank into the chair and closed his eyes. God, he was tired. There was so much he was doing, so much he had still left to do before he could reasonably return home. He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble that was the result of being so wrapped up in your work that you forget basic necessities like shaving.

Lupin's stomach rumbled.

And eating.

Yes, he needed some food. But it'd have to wait.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the parchment. It was heavy, plainly of very fine make, and the handwriting was elegant and refined. And cold, a distant part of his mind mused, as much as ink can feel cold, it's cold. Disinterested, was more of the right word. Somehow the paper gave off a feeling of unconcern, as if he could oblige them or not, it made no difference to them, really.

But Lupin would oblige them. He had to. Who knew better then he that this was the opportunity that he'd been waiting for for nearly six years?

The grandfather clock in the corner chimed the half-hour softly. Lupin glanced at it, and smiled wryly. _One… two… _

There was a soft, hesitant knock at the door. The tiny scratches that accompanied it were so faint that only someone with very… special hearing would be able to interpret them as a sign of who their caller was.

"Come in," Lupin said softly, putting the parchment away in the pocket of his robes.

A long-faced woman with straight black hair pulled away from her face in a ponytail entered slowly, trying to smile though she was clearly as tired as he was. Well, it was just past one o'clock. He knew that this was always the last thing she did before going home on Saturdays, and that she knew how important it still was to him, after six years.

"Hey Lupin," she rasped, her hoarse voice a throwback to the Epic Struggle (always accompanied with capital letters and a slight intake of breath, just so you'd never confuse it with some lesser epic struggle unworthy of the capitalization). She'd been one of the students to join the fight then, but had ventured too close to the fire and inhaled too much smoke. Mediwizards had been able to reverse most of the damage to her lungs, but the change to her voice was irreversible. She was perversely proud of it, in a way.

"Hello, Sam. And- is there..." he couldn't help it. Hope flared in his chest, causing him to grip the sides of his desk for support, his eyes fixed on the woman's face.

She shifted awkwardly on her feet, ruffling the sheaves of paper she held absentmindedly, and swallowed slightly.

The hope that had flared so brightly died. An ignoble death that was regretful and bitter.

She saw his shoulders sag, and moved slowly over to his desk. She gently set the papers in front of him, and sat in the deep chair just opposite the desk.

"There's nothing," she said quietly, confirming what he already knew to be true. "They've moved on to Ireland now. They've covered Dublin and the towns around it, but there's no sign of him. Kingsley… he thinks he may have gone to the States. We might need to contact the Ministry over there, and see if they can help us."

Lupin nodded, looking at the papers without actually seeing them.

Sam chewed her lip for a moment, and then said softly "He doesn't want to be found, Sir." She didn't usually address him like that, since he hadn't been her teacher for a long time, but she always addressed him as such when she was preoccupied or upset. She couldn't help it.

"I know, Sam. If he had wanted to be discovered… even if in the deep parts of his mind… he'd have left something. Some trace, some hint. Or maybe he'd have gotten married, and had a child. We could have found him through the school's records. They survived the Battle, you know," she nodded "But… I think… I think he's been using his magic. Not enough to attract attention, but just enough to see that he is never found."

Sam struggled for a moment, clearly wanting to ask or say something, but not knowing how. "But… Why?"

"You were there, Sam. You saw all those people die. Did you see--" He paused, it suddenly occurring to him that he'd never asked if she _had _actually witnessed the climax.

Mutely, she nodded, and for a moment looked very much like the sixteen-year-old she'd been that night.

"Well, then…" Lupin stopped, and then continued in an undertone, speaking more to himself then her now. "I was just beyond the barrier he'd raised. To protect whoever was left. And I saw his face, after it was done. As he looked at all of the bodies…" Lupin sighed heavily. "He was so young. So young to have lost all of them."

"I saw him walk away," Sam said suddenly. She was staring at her hands, and gnawing fiercely at the inside of her cheek. "He walked just past where I was lying. He… He wasn't even crying. He didn't look around, or anything, he just… walked."

The silence that followed was heavy and dark. The shared recollections danced around the room eagerly, whirling around their heads and painting memories of flames and screams and the stench.

Lupin stirred himself finally, and laid his hands on the pile of paper. "Well, alright. So Dublin's out. I think they should look up to the North as well, just to be certain. He'd probably relocate in a place without too many people, though any magic he used there would be easier to pick up. Tell Shacklebolt not to contact the Ministry in the States. The less involved in the search, the better. He might want to dispatch a band that'd be familiar with the territory. We have a few Americans among our ranks, don't we?"

Sam smiled.

After a moment, so did Lupin.

"Ah, yes, of course we do. But I believe that most of our kind over there believe that he's dead. It might only upset them to be contradicted."

"So you don't think he's dead, Lupin?" She'd meant for it to sound casual, and it really had. It was the way that she clutched the hem of her turtleneck that gave away her anxiety.

"No," Lupin said lightly "I don't believe he is." He smiled now, a genuine smile. "You should get home, Sam, you look completely exhausted. Say hello to Lily for me."

"Don't stay here too late, Lupin. You need rest too."

"Just one more appointment, Sam, then I'll go home as well."

She nodded, and made her way silently out of the office. He listened to the sound of her feet moving down the long hallway, and then the sound of the door to the outside world opening, and then shutting again with a snap.

The spells preventing Apparition within the walls of the house were necessary, and everyone was very good about not being too noisy in their complaints about them. But perhaps it was more the thought of menacing robed figures materializing in the middle of the former headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix than kindness that kept them silent.

There had been several raised eyebrows when he'd had to explain the block to those outside the Order who wanted to make social calls (not that there were too many of those). But he'd rather them think he was a paranoid recluse then suspect that maybe the Order wasn't so disbanded as it'd seemed.

Though the Death Eaters were all gone, there was still a surprising amount to do. It was no secret that the government had been in shambles ever since the entire Ministry of Magic building had burned down and thousands of the wizards and witches who worked there had died. The Order had seen a need, and filled it. They were the unofficial keepers of the peace, seeing to disturbances and watching the populace when the populace was too confused and upset to watch themselves. And they had been. Even so many years later, the vestiges of the damage done could be found anywhere. In any wizarding home where a loved one had been killed hung a picture, immobile and glossed over with shimmering green, a color that had become associated with all the resistance efforts and the victims of Voldemort. There was one in Lupin's bedroom. They served as memorials, but also as reminders. The two are actually very different things, Lupin mused, leaning back in his chair and scratching wearily at the back of his neck.

The house was completely silent. It was sometimes depressing to think of the house all alone in the dark, but it would have been infinitely more depressing to have had to spend his nights here. He was ever grateful to have his small flat in London, full of uncurious Muggles and kept under a false name.

He got to his feet slowly, feeling the stiffness in his joints. God, but he felt old.

With a flick of his wand he extinguished the lamp that sat on his desk, and closed the door to his office behind him as he left the room. The other offices were closed and locked, the knobs shimmering slightly in the half-light. There weren't so many on this floor. Just Sam's beside his, Longbottom's next to hers, and Wolfgang's across from his. The rest of the floor was taken up with the kitchen, living room, and the museum at the back, in the door across from Sam's.

This was one of the biggest rooms, and was filled with the pictures of all those who'd died, with the entire story in a huge leather bound book against the far wall. The mural behind it changed every day, and if you went there often, you could see the entire history reenacted before you. Memorial and Reminder, Lupin thought as he passed all the closed doors. Memorial and Reminder.

He glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It was now two o'clock, and she was about five hours late. He wasn't concerned yet. At this point, he'd be more concerned if she did arrive then if she didn't. If she never came, then she'd probably been much too afraid to answer even the most nonspecific and simple of summons. If she did arrive, then she had been through a truly harrowing trip. And he hoped she'd been spared that. He was aware where she might have to pass to get to the house if she chose not to Apparate nearby.

He sighed, and drew a chair out from under the high counter table. He could only wait.

He had been lost in thought for a long time when he finally heard a gentle tap at the front door. Pulling himself to his feet, he limped over to the door and pulled it slowly open.

Hermione Granger stood on the other side, and Lupin let out the breath he'd been unconsciously holding.

"Hello, Professor," she said "I'm really sorry to be so late."

"Not at all, Hermione, I understand that you had a long way to come. Did you drive?"

She nodded, but didn't say anything else. She looked so tired. _And so young,_ Lupin thought suddenly. _How can I ask her to do this?_ "Please come in."

Lupin turned away from the door and lit one of the lamps on the wall with a flick of his wand. Hermione walked in after him, taking in the very commonplace kitchen and dining room that would have fit in in any Muggle neighborhood, if not for the very wizarding touches. There was a portrait over the dusty and unused stove that was humming to itself as it methodically skinned a rabbit. The refrigerator door was open and displayed a varied collection of brightly colored vials labeled in round lettering. The couch that was chained to the far wall bore a sign reading **_If you like it the shape it is- DON'T SIT! _**As she looked at the sign the couch seemed to shudder slightly and inch forward before it reached the end of its chain and rocked back against the wall.

Hermione grinned and turned to her companion "How've you been, Professor? I haven't had contact with anyone from the Order for a long time."

"Yes, I know. But we thought perhaps you'd appreciate less of our meddling in your life," Hermione smiled, but didn't reply. "And how is your work in Scotland?"

"It's fine," she said simply, not meeting his eyes. This was a lie. She hadn't actually been working. Well, alright, she _was_ working, but waiting tables in a Muggle restaurant was not the job she thought she'd end up having. She _was _doing unofficial work researching and collecting old texts, but there wasn't so much money in that.

There was a heavy pause. Lupin watched as Hermione thought, until she suddenly looked up at him, and frowned. Lupin said nothing. She'd reached some conclusion, and, just as when she'd accused him once of being a werewolf in cahoots with a wanted murderer who was trying to kill Harry Potter, she would put it to him squarely.

But she didn't. She just looked at him shrewdly, and then looked away, tracing a pattern lightly over the design of the table.

"Hermione," he said to the top of her head "I have something I need to show you. I'm not asking for you to do anything yet. I just want you to read this, and tell me what you think."

He withdrew the piece of parchment that he'd been carrying with him ever since it had arrived the day before. Hermione took it, head cocked slightly to one side.

Lupin smiled. The misgiving he'd felt when Hermione hadn't challenged him as he'd expected her to lessened slightly. He could recognize that look. It was the face of the brightest witch of her age diving into something she didn't understand now, but _would _get to the bottom of, even if hordes of sinister figures stood in her way. The six years had changed her, but some things are fixed.

Hermione held the paper first, weighing it lightly in one hand. It was smooth, and heavy. High-quality paper, the sort you find as invitations or important letters. It had been handled heavily, probably by Professor Lupin (in her mind, he would always be 'Professor').

Well, she couldn't put it off forever. She gently eased it open, and looked at the immaculately formed writing that covered most of the page.

**To Our Charming Friends at the Order,**

**As you are no doubt aware, we have made little contact with you or the rest of the wizarding world for just over six years. We felt it in our better interests and in those of our families as a whole to retreat after the fall of the Dark Lord, and it has become too late to revoke this decision. **

**It was not so long ago that we shared the community with you, and we can still remember that time. Of course, our retreat was necessary. You know as well as we do that we could easily have been killed in the turmoil that followed the Dark Lord's death. Many of those who did not come with us perished. But despite this necessity, we do regret the reputed ongoing hostility towards our small community, and so have written this missive to remedy this. **

**We would request that you send to us one of your own, as a token of our good faith. When we say 'one of your own', we must request that it is not one of the actual members of the Order of the Phoenix. Though we are not enemies, there may be some among our number who harbor harsh feelings towards your society, and could harm this emissary. **

**We do not wish for this. Our purpose in this message is to show the public that, though our names will probably never be purified, we can be trusted as allies and friends in the future. We put out faith in you, that things can be put right, and returned to the way they were years ago. **

**And honestly, it's cold here. We are sick of hiding, and plainly sick of each other. **

**Please return your answer within the week. We understand you must think this over, and that you must have some serious misgivings, but we must ask you again to believe our pledge of honor and good faith. **

**Most Respectfully, **

**The King's Rebels**

Hermione finished the letter, and put it down on the table.

"I can't think why they're sending this _now_. They've been hiding in parts unknown up in Greenland for years, haven't they? And…" she paused, looking pensively at Lupin. "… and they've never made any contact. No one's come out, though apparently they go in."

Lupin said nothing, examining the fingernails of his right hand. Hermione continued.

"The ones that survived the battle and the aftermath just vanished. Maybe they had cause and maybe not, but no one's heard _anything_ from them since. And-" she said, changing direction suddenly and covering the paper with one hand. "-and what's this 'Kings' Rebels' rubbish? They think that 'Death Eaters' sounds just a little too politically incorrect?"

Lupin smiled. "Oh, I've missed you, Hermione."

Hermione beamed at him.

Lupin stood up, and conjured a pot of tea and two cups. "Now, I have a huge favor to ask you. And understand that you are under no obligation whatever to accept this, as I know that you've tried to distance yourself from us lately-" He hadn't meant to sound accusatory, but Hermione blushed hotly and looked away. Lupin pressed on as if he hadn't noticed, pouring a cup for each of them, "… Also, I must warn you that there will be danger…" He took a deep breath, and spread his hands open on the table top "… Hermione…"

"You want me to go as the emissary."

"Will you-" he stopped, and digested what she'd just said "-What?"

"I mean, it makes sense. I haven't spoken to anyone from the Order for a long time, or anyone from the Ministry for that matter. They can't suspect me of working for you, though I was close to all of you before that last fight. And some of them might remember me as- as Harry and Ron's friend," he had to give her credit; the hitch in her voice was almost unnoticeable "- But not a lot them would even know that. My name wasn't really mentioned as connected to the fight, except in passing."

She paused, and took a sip of her tea. Lupin smiled, immensely relieved while at the same time becoming far more anxious then he'd been.

When it looked as though she'd exhausted herself, he spoke quietly, leaning in closer to her.

"Hermione, you have to know the risks. If anything should happen, we might not be able to get help to you in time. And should you be discovered as connected to us in any way other then the way they've requested, you could be killed." She wasn't looking at him, eyes intent on the spindly tea cup before her.

"Hermione, listen to me. _You could die._"

She did look at him, and shook her head. "I'm not afraid to die, Professor," Her tone was almost surprised, as if it was odd that Lupin should ever think to warn her. "I've been… I'm glad to help, I honestly am."

He took the paper from in front of her, and slid it back into his robes. Her face was impassive, and she matched him glare for glare. Finally, Lupin sighed and slumped back against his chair.

"Very well. I wish I didn't have to ask you, Hermione, but I do. But you should know that you won't be completely isolated. We're going to send you with Hannah Abbot."

He saw Hermione start, and smiled.

"Yes, Hannah Abbot. She's been working with us for nearly two years now. You already know each other, and she can protect you, or," he remedied thoughtfully "you can protect her. I also can give you this."

He pulled a notebook from another pocket in his robes and handed it to her. It was the sort of book usually used as a diary, small and square, with a design of three smiling puppies rolling over each other in a flowery field. One of the puppies batted the ear of another as she watched, and turned watery brown eyes on her as if to say "Aren't I _adorable?_"

"Thank you, Professor," she laughed. "But, you know, I didn't get _you_ anything."

He grinned, and shook his head. Then he pulled an identical book and a quill from a different pocket. He flipped it open to the first page, and wrote something quickly down. Hermione watched, interested but perplexed.

"Now open yours." Lupin instructed, closing the notebook and gesturing to the volume in her hands.

She obeyed, and saw a thin line of writing on the first line of the previously blank page.

_**Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometime's by action dignified.**_

"Romeo and Juliet?" Hermione asked, smiling broadly.

"Not my favorite play, but one of my favorite lines." Lupin said "Now reply."

Hermione took Lupin's proffered quill, and wrote just underneath the quote "_three can keep a secret if two of them are dead."_

Lupin looked at his book, and nodded, smiling slightly.

"What did I write, Professor?"

Lupin repeated it perfectly, and slid his book into his pocket.

Hermione ran a hand over the two lines of handwriting. "This is _amazing_, Professor. I've never seen anything like it. It must be a combination of at least three different charms, or else a whole new creation. This must've taken months to develop!"

"I've given the inventor the rest of the year off," Lupin laughed softly. "And now we can contact each other at any time. I want you to contact us at least once a week, and if you know beforehand that this won't be possible, tell me as soon as you can. Everything you see should be recorded, even if it seems hopelessly mundane."

Lupin paused, apparently weighing something in his mind. Then he spoke. "There is a chance that the books won't work once you cross over. There are undoubtedly some very powerful spells on the place, and we haven't been able to test these from country to country. But we might be able to receive from you, even if you can't from us. And should there be problems, I'll bring our brilliant inventor out of retirement to fix them. We'll be in contact, one way or another."

Lupin got to his feet, and the pot of tea and cups vanished.

"I'll send the reply now, so that you won't have to wait for long. I'd pack for a long trip; they haven't said how long you'll stay there. Be prepared to leave at any time. They probably won't tell us beforehand."

Hermione got to her feet as well, sliding the book into the inside pocket of her sweater. "Professor…" she began jerkily "… I want… to thank you. I mean," she said hurriedly, to cut off his expression of contradiction "I haven't been doing anything, and I… I want to be of use to you, and to the Order. For… for them."

They both had no illusions as to who 'they' were. The ones who'd died or vanished for the side of the right and the good. Lupin could _feel_ the names flashing in between them, and nodded slowly.

Without another word, Hermione left the suburban house and walked to the white car that was parked before it. Lupin watched her drive away before he slowly walked to the museum room.

He stood in the middle of the broad room, looking around at all the portraits that looked curiously down at him and at the mural that today depicted a shadowy cloaked figure advancing on a small baby boy.

"I hope that this is the right thing to do." he whispered to the high ceiling, arms open as if trying to receive some message from the frames that lined the room from floor to ceiling.

He stood there for a long time, but no message was forthcoming.

With a final sigh, he turned and left, leaving the door unlocked behind him.

**A/N: Well, here I am, in the wonderful world of HP fiction. I have two things to say: one- that the chapter lengths are probably going to be pretty erratic. Sorry. But not all that much. Two- I had meant to write more of this before posting it, but there's only a year until the last one comes out! Man… that's depressing. So I figured I'd start posting, just for my own piece of mind. Bear with me. It might get a little messy. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: If you really are that curious about whether or not I really own any of this, go to the first chapter. Which you should have read anyway! Slacker!**

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Hermione waited until she was well past where Professor Lupin could see her, and _then_ she pulled over to the side of the road, rested her head on the steering wheel, and tried her hardest to cry.

She'd read somewhere that crying was an all-natural way to release pent-up emotion. That was, apparently, why men were such rubbish at coping with feelings.

But she couldn't bring herself to do it. She was scared enough to cry. She was being asked to journey to a foreign country, to an isolated community that was filled with all the Dark Wizards in Europe, where there would be at least a _few_ wizards who'd recognize her as the former best mate of Harry Potter.

_Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead. _

She was sad enough to cry, as well.

Of course,technically, none of the three were actually _dead_.

Harry was as good as. He might even actually _be_ dead. She didn't know. She hadn't seen or heard anything from him since she watched him walk away from the final battle, the body of his fallen nemesis lying huddled on the ground behind him. That had hurt her, almost more then anything else that had happened. Obviously because she'd felt abandoned, but also because he'd been able to just walk away and never look back. She'd tried, oh, she'd tired _so hard_ to just forget that any of it had ever happened. To just live as if the words 'magic' and 'wizard' were just words from fairy-tales. She felt sorry for Harry as well. For him to tear himself away from all of them… he must have been so… so… _tired._

Hermione was alive, as well. Obviously.

And Ron was alive. The Mediwitch who looked after him had told Hermione that he showed great improvement, and was beginning to respond subtly to light and sound. It was progress. He had seemed like a corpse for the past six years, but there was color coming to his face, and sometimes his eyes would briefly flicker underneath his eyelashes. This was something. The Weasleys desperately needed a 'something' to focus on.

And even thinking about Ron couldn't make her cry. She gently pounded on the wheel with her forehead as the headlights from a passing car swung over her face.

Hermione was tired, and she looked it. Her bushy brown hair was tied away from her face into a loose bun that spilled curls down to her shoulders, and she had the cautious, hunched look of someone who hadn't had a really solid meal in much too long.

She was surviving. She was working, and she was interacting with people. She saw this as a major accomplishment. She tried to talk to people as much as possible. She's seen survivors who'd closed themselves off completely. And she had been close. She'd come close to that _often_. More often that she'd care to admit. It would have been very easy to just slide back. But she'd thought about it, and felt that she would be backing out if she gave up. It would've felt like cheating. And it wasn't an escape from pain, really. It just trapped you in your memories of the past, until you'd forgotten who you were, and all you knew was that horrible gut-wrenching sense of loss.

She gave up trying to cry, and leaned back in her seat, thinking. She hadn't really grasped what she was being asked to do yet. She knew that she was going to go to a northern country that was home to a horde of (alleged) villains. She was going to _spy_. She'd never have associated herself with that word. It was something out of old movies, not things that happened to _her. _Ever. But she was going to do it. The notebook was heavy in her pocket, the small prism dangling from the mirror whirled wildly and winked little rays of light into her eyes.

She needed to go home. She needed to think, to pack, and to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: If you really are that curious about whether or not I really own any of this, go to the first chapter. Which you should have read anyway! Slacker!

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She let herself into the flat quietly, trying not to wake Mr. Simpson, the crotchety old man who rented the room to her. He lived just above her, and could somehow hear the slightest noise even as he claimed to be asleep. She paused and looked at the quiet room before her, composed of several identical chairs and sofas. It was the perfect single apartment, free of clutter. A place for everything, and everything in its immaculately clean place. All in all, the sort of place your parents always wanted you to have.

Hermione sighed, withdrew her wand from her deep inside pocket, and waved it lazily in front of her.

The perfect room melted away, revealing a room that wasn't _quite _as… tidy. There were books everywhere, spilling off the shelves that lined the walls, lying on the bow-legged coffee table, and sliding down to rest in piles on the floor. In among the literary maelstrom rested a saggy purple sofa that had once belonged to her dad, and a wide oak desk that overlooked a narrow view of the Scottish countryside. It wasn't the legendary highlands or anything, just the stretch of green land between small town and small town.

She walked over to the couch and sank into it, inhaling the musky scent that was seemingly an integral part of the sofa and allowing herself to sink into the plushy interior. The shoulder bag she'd brought with her dropped to the ground.

She was glad to be home.

But she didn't have time to rest. She walked quickly over to the desk and gently moved aside a glass case that contained an ancient book written in some disorganized and slanting script. She withdrew the puppy notebook from her pocket and laid it open on the desk. The two lines were there just as they'd been before, one in her small, precise writing, and the other in Remus Lupin's large scrawling print.

She wanted to test the book again, to write and see if Lupin would respond. But she resisted the urge and turned away from the desk, walking quickly into her bedroom.

It took no time at all to pull together enough clothes to (she figured) stay a month. How long could it take for her to see that (or, more probably, if) the 'King's Rebels' were reformed? Not more then a month! The untidy bundle went into a Muggle duffel bag, which then went to rest beside the front door of the flat.

And she didn't really know what to do after that. Should she call her mum and let her know that she _might, maybe _be going _far_ away for a while, but she didn't know when she was leaving, when she was coming back, or even why she was going?

It hit her then, what she was doing. She steadied herself against her bureau, waves of panic washing through her. She let out a sob, and, horrified at what she had agreed to do, sank wearily onto her bed.

_Fabulous,_ she thought wearily, pushing out of her sturdy boots and curling up on top of the comforter. _It never fails, does it? Just when you thought you were well out of it, and that maybe the day would come when you wouldn't have all these _memories_, they drag you back in. Without a doubt. Bastards._

She rolled over, turned out the light, and tried to get some sleep.

Of course, the harder she tried, the less likely it seemed that she would _ever_ get to sleep. Life is just like that, occasionally.

* * *

**A/N: hokays! This is sorta part 2, even though I knows it's actually chapter 4. I like this posting chapters in two installments, so I'm going to keep it up. Bua ha ha ha. Thanks for the loverly reviews from Infradead and Ruler of Destiny! The reviews… they make me so happy! (nudge nudge hint hint)**


	5. Chapter 5

Severus Snape was not in a pleasant mood.

Alright, so he was _never _in exactly a pleasant mood, but his mood now was enough to cause an entire fortress of some of the filthiest, meanest, foulest wizards in Europe to scurry before him like the horrible students he'd once had to teach. He held clenched in one hand a piece of parchment. It'd arrived on his desk about ten minutes ago. From surly to raging in three seconds. Such was Snape's incredibly range.

His modified Muggle wheelchair sped unaided through the dark corridors, the cold within them now so familiar that he only registered it as a dull ache in his joints. The fortress was a maze, but after years maneuvering around the sharp corners, he'd come to know most of its secrets and short cuts as well as he knew his own face. Better, in fact. He'd been too busy for mirrors and idiocy like that for a long time.

He'd known this was a mistake. He'd known that there was no winning this situation, it was too much of a gamble, too risky, too unpredictable. He zoomed into the library, and roared wordlessly, slamming the parchment down on a nearby table. It was only one sheet, so the slamming wasn't very satisfactory, but the roaring filled him with a savage glee.

A tall, attractive black man with proud features and impeccably fitting robes appeared from behind a shelf, holding a stack of books under one arm.

"Severus," he greeted him, not _quite_ smiling, but raising an eyebrow at the man glaring at him "You should work on being a little more assertive. How on earth can we cater to your needs when you don't—"

"Shut up, Zabini. I don't have time for your _wit. _Where is he?"

Blaise Zabini smirked, and nodded towards the back of the room. Snape revved his chair forward, and Zabini had to step neatly to the side to keep from being plastered against the nearest shelf.

Sure enough, there he was in the back, looking at some ancient parchment from the very top of one of the rickety old ladders that filled the blasted place. Snape waited at the base of the ladder, seething silently. Finally the man looked down, and though Snape couldn't see his face from the distance (it was a _very_ big library) the smirk was tangible in the air.

"Snape," the man said, climbing down with the scroll tucked under his arm "Nice to see you again. It's been what? Fifteen whole minutes?"

"Have you seen the message?"

"Yes."

Snape gaped. "'Yes'? That's all? Don't you think—"

"No, I don't. Did you expect them to be forthcoming? We've taken an enormous risk here, Snape. It's been a struggle just convincing them that they shouldn't just leave us here—" He made a sweeping gesture which encompassed the fortress beyond the library and all its inhabitants "—to quietly rot. So far, we've been _too_ careful."

"We had good reason to!"

The other man nodded his assent, moving over to a chair and sinking into it, brushing the dust off of his fine velvet robes. "… And Lupin wouldn't be so trusting. Think about it, Snape. The last time most of us were seen among the rest of the world was that last fight. It's natural for them to distrust us a little."

Snape seethed. "But we have no idea who he's sending. It could be absolutely anyone. _Anyone_."

"Not quite. Lupin wouldn't come himself. He also won't send any of his precious inner circle. We've managed to keep some sort of tabs on each of them, and none have shown any restive signs. Potter is gone, possibly dead. Weasley is popular, true, but he's also confined to bed and trapped inside his own mind. Granger has also vanished. Who else do we have to fear?"

Snape didn't answer. He ran a hand through his lanky black hair, and sighed. His aggression dissipated, and he sagged against the back of his chair. When he spoke, his voice held a hint of a plea in it "We have so _much_ to fear. Why can't you see that?"

No answer from his companion. Snape looked away from him, staring at the shelf opposite. There were no books on this particular shelf. Just drawers. Snape knew that they held within them information on every single member of the wizarding world who'd even been connected to or drawn the attention of the Death Eaters. His file was in there, somewhere. Probably gathering mold and crumbling away.

Just like he was.

"This will never work," Snape said quietly "There's too much that could go wrong."

The man stirred, smiling grimly as he rose, clapping a hand on Snape's shoulder "It's a risk we're going to take."

"I don't suppose I can persuade you otherwise?" Snape called after him as he walked away.

"No. Go dig through files if it'd make you happier. I'll be in my office"

Snape watched the tall blonde figure leave the library, and reflected on how very _good_ at seething he was growing to be.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: WHY are you reading this instead of the story? YOU know I don't own Harry, I know I don't own Harry, so why do we keep up with this ridiculous charade? Read!**

While she waited for Lupin to get in touch with her, Hermione worked.

She set aside her ongoing projects and began sealing the more fragile and rare manuscripts so they'd survive if her stay turned too long. The other books she found places for, dislodging her personal books to make enough shelf space to keep all her acquired tomes neat. What wouldn't fit on a shelf, she pushed under furniture and in drawers.

It wasn't so neat, but it'd do.

She then moved around her now strangely tidy flat, doing other sorts of work. She checked the little book every day at least three times, occasionally writing some sort of detail about what she'd packed and who she'd need to water her plants while she was gone. Lupin had replied to each briefly, and always with the assurance that he'd get word to her as soon as he could about when she'd leave.

She had no choice but to wait.

So she worked.

She'd dug up what information she could find on Hannah Abbot, from the old issues of the Daily Prophet (which she kept in a huge binder on her kitchen table), to any letters she'd gotten from the wizarding world (which were kept in a well-loved folder in her desk drawer). She didn't find much. As an agent for the Order, Hannah must have been very, very good or totally useless. Maybe it wasn't fair to base her opinion on what she remembered of the permanently friendly, round-faced Hufflepuff, but she was inclined to believe it was the latter.

Which made no sense. Lupin wouldn't have allowed Hannah to even _join_ the Order if she was useless, let alone assign her to an undoubtedly dangerous mission among probable enemies. So maybe she was actually a genius.

Thinking about Hannah Abbot only confused her, so she soon gave up.

She continued to work at the restaurant, carrying trays of steaming food without really being there. She had spent so much time pushing all of her past away from her, and now she suddenly had _so much_ of it to go over.

For example, what was that 'King's Rebels' all about? Highly symbolic, obviously, and very dramatic. But from a society that used to refer to themselves as the blatantly menacing and none-too-subtle "Death Eaters", it was surprisingly poetic. What did the new name mean? And more importantly, in Hermione's mind, who had given them that name?

She worked during that time better than she ever had, and Molly, her cheerfully informal boss, made whispered comments as they passed each other that there must be "Some fella who you're savin up ta go ta. Yeh've never been _this_ good before"

Well, there was a fella. Possibly a whole army of them. She'd thought this was riotously funny the first time it'd come to her, but as she thought more about it, it made her feel ill.

It was two weeks after she'd gotten home from her long drive to England and the suburban headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix that she was finally called.

**_Be ready. It's time_**.

Just in case she'd miss the significance of the note, the writer (who wasn't Lupin; for once the hand was in a totally different style) had drawn a box around the message and added several excited exclamation points. In three different colors of ink.

Not sure whether to be afraid or excited, Hermione settled for a little bit of both. After running to be sick in the bathroom, she cleaned herself up, made sure her bag and her books were in order, called Molly to tell her she was going to meet her fella, and sat on the couch, waiting.

Half an hour after she'd read the note, someone knocked at the door to her flat.

She braced herself as she went to the door, some part of her aware that all the work she'd done at forgetting her past was about to come fantastically undone. But none the less, it was too late to go back to her hermitage. She knew this, and she staunchly prepared herself for whoever was waiting for her on the other side.

Not enough, as it turned out.

As soon as she'd carefully cracked open the door, the woman outside it had practically knocked it off its hinges and had taken Hermione into a crushing hug. Hermione tried to breathe, fighting the impulse to run as far away from this attack as possible.

Then she was released, and Hannah Abbot smiled at her, hands on her hips.

"Hi, Hannah," Hermione managed.

"Hey, Hermione. You look great!" Hannah beamed at her, and moved past her to look around the flat.

Hannah hadn't really changed all that much. She still had a round, open face, though it had mellowed and aged over the six years that had gone by since Hermione had last seen her. Her plump form had settled itself into comfortable curves, and she'd grown taller. Her straight blonde hair was tied away from her face into a long ponytail. She looked healthy, and, oddly enough, happy. It occurred to Hermione that the few magical people she'd met in the last six years all looked haggard and somber. She wondered if this was a reflection on wizards today in general, or just on the type of people she was closest to.

Hermione closed the door, trying to think of the last time she'd seen Hannah. Was it at the fight? No… she'd seen her at some of the funerals. There'd been a group of them, the ones who were able to move around in the months after the Battle. Pale, thin children who talked either too loudly or not at all. You could always tell who'd been there, and who'd just heard about it afterwards. The latter group watched the former ones with awe, and a little fear.

But the survivors hadn't really talked to each other. Though there were a number of them always at a funeral, they didn't associate or even stand together. It was easier, back then, to ignore it all. Watch the burial, and pretend that you weren't there when the person in the coffin had died.

It had become a macabre sort of superstition, having a surviving child at a funeral. Hermione had been invited to a few for people she'd never met, just because she had been there. It was good luck, people believed, to have one of 'Them' (how the survivors were ceremoniously referred to) at a funeral. Why this was wasn't really discussed. Some people thought it was encouraging for the dead, and some for the living. It didn't really matter. Hermione had gone to a few of them, but stopped after the first couple. It was too much, to have to worry about the dead you'd never met as well as the ones you'd loved. Maybe it was selfish. But they were all just kids at the time, really.

Hannah had cried at Ernie's funeral. She was the only one of the surviving children who'd ever cried. That made them all avoid her, a little bit. It seemed like she was exposing a part of their shared vulnerability. It had seemed like a minor betrayal.

But Hermione hadn't heard from her in the intermittent years. She'd fled to Scotland, and they'd never been too close even before… everything happened.

Hannah was examining a stack of books under the coffee table. She was letting out occasional admiring noises, but didn't really seem to need any sort of reply.

"Would you like some tea or something, Hannah?" Hermione asked, figuring that the sooner she got a grip on herself, the better the whole thing would be.

Hannah straightened up. "That would be wonderful, Hermione. Thanks."

"Not at all." Hermione replied, relieved to be able to do _something_. "Come on into the kitchen. I'll see what I have"

Hannah sat at the table, and Hermione stood by the kettle, leaning against the counter for support.

What a day.

"So," Hannah said, spreading her hands out on the table and looking at Hermione "Are you ready?" Something about her had changed from the bubbly woman from just moment before. She still smiled, but her voice was now very serious.

"I'm all packed. My bag's right by the door." Hermione said airily

"That's not what I asked." Hannah said evenly. Hermione was surprised. She looked at Hannah intently, and the woman returned her stare calmly.

Hermione eventually turned to the kettle, adjusting the gas burner. She felt the heat coming off the red kettle, tightening the skin on her hands and face. She tried to form some sort of a reply, but couldn't seem to think of anything she could say.

"You're really being enormously brave." Hannah said to her back. "Lupin thinks so as well. I looked into your file…" she paused, looking at her carefully.

Hermione shrugged without turning around. She'd figured she must have had a file _somewhere_. She couldn't think what it would say about how she'd spent the past six years, but she'd had some idea that there _was_ one.

Hannah continued "… and you've hidden."

Hermione whirled around. "Hidden? I've been here the entire time!" The word 'hidden' made her think of a wizard who'd vanished from the wizarding world without a trace. And she didn't like thinking about him. It made her feel oddly hollowed out and tired.

Hannah shook her head "Yes. You have been out in the open, that's true. But you've still been hiding from us. You're pretty lucky, actually. You had a life to hide in. For most of us, hiding wasn't an option. Live like Muggles? We wouldn't know how to even begin. It was unthinkable."

Hermione decided that the tea should be ready. She turned the heat off, and rummaged in the cupboard for two mugs. Hannah watched her back as she moved.

She was surprised by Hermione. Reading the file, she was ready for some more neurotic version of the Hermione she'd known in school. Some blend of eager, bright, and impatient, maybe tempered with a touch of anxiousness. But she'd forgotten about the Hermione from after the Battle. Hermione had changed. She no longer drew attention to herself, and when she spoke it was with a quiet despair. Hannah had sympathized with her then. Hermione's two best friends, the two boys who were the only people her age who she'd ever gotten close to, had vanished. Ron into a vegetative state, and Harry as a shadow fading into the distance.

Privately, Hannah had always harbored a little resentment against Harry Potter. He'd walked off when the whole world needed him, and when he could have done such good for everyone in both worlds. But even more unforgivable was his walking off when _Hermione_ had needed him. His best friend.

And Hermione was shaken by it. Hannah wasn't close enough to her to become her confidant, but it was evident by how thin and tired she appeared after the Battle that she was suffering. Though Hannah never knew if she felt any bitterness towards Harry, she imagined that the pain must've been acute.

But, Hannah though, watching Hermione swear under her breath as she stood on tip toe to search for the last tea bag, at the time she had been a little busy with her own grief to spare any emotion for another girl who'd lost friends. It was selfish, yes, but it was how they all were. She regretted it a little now.

Hermione turned to her, with the two mugs firmly in hand. Setting one down before Hannah, she eased into the chair opposite, and wrapped her hands around her own mug.

Hannah sipped, and made the appropriate appreciative noises. And then she sat the mug down and waited for Hermione to speak.

Hermione hadn't touched her tea yet. She rolled it gently in between her hands, and thoughtfully addressed the tabletop.

"I suppose I never thought about it like that, that I was lucky to have something to fall back on. But you know, I've thought about it a little, and I think I might have been… well, I mean, it probably wasn't the bravest thing to do, running up here and acting like I wasn't involved, but…" she trailed off, and took a small sip from her cup "… it made sense at the time. Ooh, this is awful. Sorry about that. I'm a little out of practice, I suppose. What about you? How did you get involved in the Order?"

Hannah shrugged "I ran into Ginny Weasley. Yes, I know, she's not really the type you'd just run into," she said in response to Hermione's shocked face, Ginny Weasley now being one of the loudest (and most famed) voices for change and rehabilitation "But I really did. In a little bar in Slough. It was very strange. But she seemed to know I hadn't been doing much, and she asked if I had time to set the world right again." Hermione laughed softly, and sipped again.

"So I joined. And it was nice, though not all the time, I suppose."

"How did you get stuck with this job?" Hermione asked, smiling

"Stuck?" Hannah asked, tilting her head to one side "But you… didn't you agree…"

"Oh, yes, of course," Hermione said lightly "But I wasn't sure if anyone else would want to go. It's… um… well, it's an odd job."

"Yes, it is. But Lupin asked me. And I still owe him so much for all that he did for us after the Battle"

The 'us' was justified in this case. There were kids who'd lost their entire families, and Lupin had seen to it that they were either placed under the protection of other families or set up so that they could live easily on their own. Hannah had lost her parents and a brother, but the horrible fact of it was somewhat eased for her and her remaining brother by not having to worry about living alone. And he had helped _everyone_, sliding gently into the position that should have been filled (in Hannah's opinion) by Harry Potter. Someone for the whole community to look to, and to rely on. Someone who was taking care of them, and who was there for them all.

Silence fell. Hermione stared at the table again, stirring her tea with a finger. Hannah drained the mug, and then stood.

"Alright. Let me see what you've packed. I can tell you if you're missing anything."

Hannah ended up adding a clean and brightly patterned towel, a heavy winter coat and mittens, and a sturdy pair of boots that had belonged to Hermione's father. She also insisted that she bring her old bathrobe, and a few 'really comforting books' that Hermione hadn't known that she'd had until Hannah had unearthed them from a pile beside her bed.

"Hannah?" Hermione asked as Hannah rummaged through her closet

"Hmm?"

"How long do you think we're really going to be out there? I mean, there wasn't any date or anything on the message. When do we have enough of an idea that they're all ok?"

"We don't know," Hannah said from within the closet "We think it could be any time from a week to a few months. It's pretty much impossible to tell. Wereally_ know_," she said, emerging with a pile of clothes in her arms "almost nothing. We don't know how many of them there are in there; we don't know who their leader is; we don't know what their plans are. We barely even know that they're former Death Eaters. It seems that they've swelled from _just _the Death Eaters into _anyone_ who isn't overly fond of the wizarding world at large. We've carefully collected all the rumors. They have armies of medieval elves with guns, or they've successfully replicated dinosaurs, or they have some Muggle musician from the sixties penned up with them. We don't know anything at all, really."

"Oh. Alright then." Hermione said faintly. "Do we have some sort of a _plan¸_ at any rate?"

"Hmm… yes. Get in, don't get killed, get information, don't get killed, get out. And, of course, how could I forget, don't get killed."

Hermione didn't say anything. She just very slowly sank onto her bed and put her head in her hands.

"Now, now, cheer up. We'll be fine. Where's your wand?"

Hermione reached inside her jacket and pulled it out. _She hid, but she still carries it_, Hannah thought, nodding and returning to stuffing the clothes into the duffel. _This is important. It makes her still a witch; for all that she tried to cut herself away from it._

"Ok. Good. Bring it. We're _definitely _going in there with wands. We don't know what other forms of defense we might_ need_, but wands are pretty much all we can count on being allowed."

Hermione nodded dazedly and slid the wand back inside her jacket. The situation had a strong feeling of unreality. She kept wanting to laugh at the insanity of the whole thing. It was too surreal.

Hannah, having finished repacking all Hermione's things, stood up and looked hard at her.

"Alright. You're ready. Let's go."

Hermione blinked at her "Now?"

Hannah nodded, pulling out her own wand "Now."


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Go read chapter one if you really can't figure it out. Must I do everything?**

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He had fallen asleep at his desk. Again.

Blaise Zabini let out a sigh, and sat down in the chair opposite the grand wooden desk. Carefully he eased the pile of paperwork he'd been holding down onto the floor beside him.

There wasn't any room on the table, what with sleeping head, four unsteady piles of books, two overflowing 'in' trays, and other scattered sheets of paper that were probably immaculately organized, for all that they looked like they'd been thrown there in a fit of rage.

Blaise yawned, and leaned back in the chair. If his papers were at all important, he'd have woken his friend up. But they contained nothing he didn't already know. The usual members of _their_ organization were making trouble on the inside, and the usual members of _outside_ organizations were making trouble on the outside. Life continued, in other words.

There was only one sheet in the entire stack that pertained at all to the subject that had kept everyone on edge for the past month, and its message could be summed up in a sentence.

This sentence being: **_We don't know anything._**

So, better to let him sleep, and give him his disappointment when he was at least rested for it.

Blaise yawned again, blinking sleepily at the office. Honestly, he was tired too. He hadn't slept in…hmm… well, he had slumped against the wall when he was waiting for Rupert to deliver his report in the kitchen for about… fifteen minutes.

That was two days ago.

Thank god for the full pots of _extremely_ caffeinated coffee stationed in every office. He'd tied his own mug to a loop in his pants with a bit of string. It had got to be too much of a bother to keep having to dash for a mug every twenty minutes, and annoying to trek down to the kitchens to search for a clean one. Caffeine was a wonderful comfort, especially when you felt like your head was about to explode from fatigue and worry.

They were coming soon. It was unbelievable that the Order was sending them with so little doubt or caution, but they were coming.

_They're desperate,_ Blaise thought grimly _They're just _dying_ to know what we're up to here. _He couldn't blame them. The whole reason why he'd come to Greenland was because he'd been curious. That, and the fact that all his old friends had vanished there just after the Battle. They'd been willing to accept him, for all that he'd somehow missed the actual epic and unforgettable fight.

It was strange how he'd missed it, actually. He'd been violently sick the whole week before it happened, having drunk what he _thought_ was a love potion from Diana Cyrrus, but what had actually been a bottle of dissolving potion that someone had left on a table. By the time he'd managed to get to the Hospital Wing, most of his torso was empty. He'd been shipped off to Saint Mungo's, and had only heard about the Battle afterwards.

And there he'd read the list of names of those who'd died in it. It had taken place at the school, but there were so many people… so_ many _students_…_and the outsiders that had arrived in the middle of it…the Daily Prophet (what was left of it) had printed, as one of their greatest issues, a special edition which showed the pictures and names of those who'd died, as well as information on those missing or injured. Blaise had read the packet and cried, for the people he'd loved on _both_ sides. And he'd screamed at the nurse who came in to calm him down, and had thrown all that he could reach from his position in the bed.

To this day he couldn't decide which side he'd have fought on, if he was there. But he didn't broadcast that often. Not here. It was a little dangerous to show even the slightest bit of doubt here.

He needed more coffee. He only got this wrapped up in the past when he was sleepy.

He stretched, and peered at the sleeping head in front of him.

He still couldn't understand how this man had wrapped the whole organization around his finger. You'd never be able to tell from his behavior at school, but he was a fantastic leader. And actually quite a genius, with an amazing gift for people skills. People who he thought worth his while, anyway. Not _everything_ had changed since he was a boy. And the people here _worshipped_ him. He was more human than the Dark Lord, they said.

And they meant this as actually a _good_ thing.

Blaise privately thought it was just because of his looks. Everybody loves a blond evil man.

The blonde head itself shifted, and groaned.

"What time is it?" it muttered into a file on possible weapon imports from Madrid, keeping itself firmly planted on the desk.

Blaise consulted his watch, and stood "About three."

"In the afternoon?"

"Sorry. In the morning."

The head rose, and glared grumpily at Blaise "Then what're you doing here?"

"Is it _my_ fault you're a slave driver?" Blaise asked dryly. He pointed to the pile of paper next to the chair "There're the reports on all our favorite people in an out, and one scrap on the Order's people coming to join us."

The other man grunted, and got to his feet stiffly. He stumbled over to a wash pan in the corner and splashed his face with the freezing water.

"What does it say?" he asked, shivering

"That there're two of them, and that they were at the Battle," Blaise shrugged "Nothing we didn't know before. Do you need a towel, or something?"

He was ignored, as usual.

"Why don't we have anything? We should know _something_ by now! They're coming _tomorrow_, for god's sake!"

Hmm. Yes, he seemed more awake now.

"Today actually. It being three o'clock, it's actually tomorrow already."

The 'King' of the King's Rebels moaned, and sank back into the chair

"Zabini, this is… it's…"

"Yes?"

"Nevermind." He sighed, and rubbed his eyes with his fists

Blaise frowned at him "Don't push yourself too hard. We've still got a long way to go, and this week is going to be—"

"—Hell. Yes, I know that. Do you think I don't?" he waved a hand at him, and sighed "Go get some coffee for me, will you? I need to wake up."

Blaise nodded, and left.

Draco Malfoy watched him leave, and then let his head fall back onto the desk with a thud.

"Today is only going to get worse, isn't it?" he mumbled to himself, just before fully committing himself to getting back to sleep. He felt like it was possibly the only sleep he would be able to get for the next six months.

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**A/N: bua ha ha ha! The mastermind has been revealed! Now the mind-fucking can REALLY begin! Eternal thanks to Rachel J Lupin, who has reviewed just about EVERY chapter, and who makes this whole thing even more fun! And I kinda want you guys to review too. Just to tell me (honestly) what you think. I can take it, I swear! **


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: If you really are that curious about whether or not I really own any of this, go to the first chapter. Which you should have read anyway! Slacker!**

Lupin was sitting at the kitchen table, tense and alert. His head hurt and he was stiff, but the liberal sips he took out of a steaming cup of tea that sat by his elbow were helping to keep him from leaping up and strangling the nearest person. It did nothing for the fact that he was tired and stiff, but it was very soothing

Every line in his body was tightly wound, aching, but ready. His gaze was fixed on a square mirror that he held in his hands, disregarding the murmur of talk in the kitchen around him.

Sam stood behind him on his left; Neville Longbottom was seated at his right. They were the only silent ones in the kitchen. The rest of it was packed with chatting members of the Order, flitting from group to group, swapping ideas and glancing at the pool of silence that was the kitchen table.

"How long now?" Neville asked, leaning forward in his seat

"Not long," Lupin replied, eyes never leaving the surface of the mirror "Hannah said she'd activate it when they were about ready to go."

"Isn't it a little… late?" Neville asked cautiously, voicing the question that no one else had dared to.

Lupin didn't reply. He glanced away from the mirror long enough to find his mug and take a long sip from it, and then his attention was focused again.

Neville sighed softly, and rubbed his eyes with one hand.

Sam shifted uneasily, glancing out the window at the dark sky.

"We've got them," Lupin said quietly.

As though he'd shouted, every person in the room froze and turned to face him. He laid the mirror up against the wall, so all assembled there could see and hear it easily.

The mirror glowed an achingly bright pink, and began to play some sort of bizarre version of elevator muzak. Lupin growled lowly (something he very rarely did, since it tended to make people nervous), and Neville absent-mindedly began to hum along to the tune.

Then the screen cleared, and Hannah's frowning face swam into view.

"…can't stand this fucking… Hello, Lupin! Can you hear me alright?"

Lupin nodded, and smiled tightly. "Yes, we can hear you fine. Can you hear me?"

Hannah nodded "Clear as crystal. I've got Hermione, and we're just about to Apparate out of here, to the meeting point."

"Right. Very good. You know the way there?"

"Of course. Sam gave me the run-down after she went to check it out."

Lupin looked over his shoulder, and Sam nodded. "Very good," Lupin said, turning back around. "And how's Hermione doing?"

Hannah smiled "Oh, fantastically. She's leaping around like a big, bushy puppy. Bit embarrassing, actually." There was a muffled noise of protest from Hannah's end, and the mirror quaked before righting itself.

Lupin smiled again, and this time it wasn't so strained. "Will you put her on, Hannah?"

"Of course. Just a moment."

There was a flash of wooden floor, light blue wall, and then Hermione's face. She was smiling, but for all that, looked a little… well… greenish.

"Hello, Lupin. Hello… Um… Everyone." She looked embarrassed to see the expectant faces of the Order all assembled around Lupin's, and shrank back a little from the handheld mirror. A few people waved, and someone called out a "Hi, Hermione!"

Lupin ignored them. "Hermione, do you have the notebook?'

She pulled it out of her back pocket, and showed it to him. "I haven't parted with it since you gave it to me."

"Good. And you remember that it might not work once you get there, despite all our plans?"

She nodded, looking slightly less green and vaguely more determined. "Yes. And I should continue writing just the same, in case it's only my book that's not receiving."

"Perfect. I'll do the same. And if that should be the case, we should have the books working in a month, at the very most."

"I understand."

"Very good." Lupin paused, studying Hermione carefully "Be careful, both of you. We—" he stopped, unsure of how to say it. "—just take care, alright?"

Hermione nodded, and smiled at him faintly. Then she was gone, and Hannah had returned. Her tone was now all business.

"Right. We're all set to go, _really_ this time. I've still got the mirror on, so though you may not be able to see, you'll be able to hear. Definitely until we get out of the country, and maybe a little after then. I don't know."

"Good work, Hannah. And you've got your tools?"

Hannah looked mildly offended. "Of _course_ I do, Lupin. Honestly, do you think you're dealing with an amateur?"

Someone behind him murmured. "Well… yes."

Hannah narrowed her eyes and smiled evilly. "I heard that, Kostadin. And I'll be sure to remember it, too." Her face vanished, and everything went black as she slid it into her jacket pocket.

Lupin leaned back in his seat, massaging the bridge of his nose with two fingers. Sam walked around the table and pulled out a chair across from Lupin. The others, seeming to understand that this could be a long listen, leaned against counters and walls. Some of the younger ones perched on the dishwasher or found places on the floor. They waited, listening intently to Hermione and Hannah arguing about how they were going to carry Hermione's now quite large and heavy bag.

Eventually, the sounds of the argument trailed off, and there was a brief silence. Then, Hermione's voice.

"Ooh… I'd forgotten how _strange _that feels."

Hannah looked around at the meeting place. It was a stretch of abandoned beach. Not really the lovely bring-the-kids-down-to-the-shore-for-a-day-of-romping type of beach. At all. It was more of the ragged rocks, homicidal seagulls, and evil-looking-waves-that-could-mash-you-to-a-pulp-pounding-on-rough-gray-sand type of beach.

"Just the sort of place they'd chose," She sighed, rolling her eyes. "How ridiculously clichéd. Oh well," she said, dropping her bag to the ground. "At least it's not a cemetery."

"They probably think that having us go to a graveyard wouldn't exactly set us at our ease." Hermione said darkly, also setting down her bag .

"Quite right." Said Blaise Zabini from among a clump of rocks behind them, just as if he'd always been there.

Hermione and Hannah whirled around, both reaching a hand inside their jackets. They froze when they saw who'd addressed them. Blaise too, seeing them properly, gaped.

"Zabini?" Hermione whispered, looking mildly disgusted.

"_Granger!"_ He rasped, putting a hand to his forehead.

Lupin, listening, sat up slightly, looking alarmed.

"Uh oh," Sam murmured, looking at him

"There's me too," said Hannah, annoyed, raising a hand. "I think I know you too."

Blaise blinked at her, and frowned.

"Hannah Abbot!" Hannah snapped, flushing. "_Honestly_."

"But," Blaise stammered, turning back to gape in horror at Hermione. "But—_you're _the emissaries? _You_?"

"Yes," Hannah said, still annoyed. "_Us._ Why wouldn't we be?"

Hermione was looking steadily at Blaise, chewing slightly on her bottom lip. Something had _really_ bothered him. She remembered him as a cool, distant boy at school. He was horribly rich, horribly attractive, and had horribly famous parents. He had been in Slytherin, and even though Malfoy had essentially ruled that house, whenever Zabini associated with that group he always gave off the impression that he was doing them a favor. And now he was standing before them, still tall, even more incredibly handsome, but looking as though he'd just been rammed in the stomach by an angry hippo.

Blaise's gaze flickered between Hermione and Hannah. His look was now much less surprised, but _much_ more panicked.

"Oh _shit,"_ He murmured. "Oh _shit_. What do I do now?"

Hannah had started to grin. She couldn't help it. The sight of Blaise Zabini, his immaculately tailored suit rumpled, his rich brown skin flushed, and his black hair rapidly getting less and less sleek, was tickling those little sardonic senses that had kept the childish enjoyment of seeing the high-and-mighty looking a total mess.

Of course, the grin also helped her to keep in check the hysteria that she could feel forcing its way up into her throat, but it was mainly because of the high-and-mighty thing.

"You could," she said slowly, as if he needed to have the idea spelled out for him in big, colorful letters. "Take us to your fortress. You know. Like you said you would?"

Blaise focused on her, and scowled. He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to come to his senses, and contented himself with groaning and running a hand over his hair.

There was a brief moment of silence. Blaise looked at the two women before him. His thoughts were something along the lines of "_Oh-shit-oh-fuck-what-the-HELL-am-I-going-to-do-not-them-and-ESPECIALLY-not-her-this-is-not-my-week-_where_-the-hell-can-I-get-some-coffee-_what_-the-hell-am-I-going-to-tell-_HIM!"

"Zabini," Hermione said finally. "You do realize that you have a mug tied to your pants, don't you?"

Blaise looked down, blinked, then looked up at Hermione again. She was looking at him serenely. Well, except for the smug smile creeping over her Mudblood mouth. Fantastic. This was going to be bloody _fantastic, _wasn't it? Wasn't she supposed to be MIA? Vanished without a trace? Gone? _Not here?_

He ran his hand over his hair again, forcing himself to calm down. This was not good. Of all the people he could have sent… he had to hand it to Lupin. He was a devious bastard. Sending Hermione Granger… of course, he wouldn't have _known_ who was the leader of the King's Rebels. It was just a lucky guess.

Oh, fuck. He _hoped_ it was just a lucky guess. Oh, _fuck._

"Right," he breathed "OK. This is… OK. Just… um… surprising. You both look well."

They really did too. _Fuck, fuck, FUCK_.

"You look a real mess," Hannah informed him. She was… umm… curvier than he'd remembered her. He inwardly groaned. They did _not_ need two new and attractive females wandering around the fortress. It was one of the _last_ things they needed. Hannah was grinning at him. "Do you want to sit down?"

"No," Blaise said coolly. "I think we should get going."

Hermione spread her arms open, still grinning smugly "We've been waiting for you, Zabini. We decided get our panic attacks out of the way _before_ we came."

"Thank you very much," was his crisp reply. He had to bite back the number of decidedly unfriendly things he'd have rather said. But this was _diplomacy_. Blaise was usually quite good at it, but they'd surprised him, dammit. Hermione Granger… he would have to arrange to _not_ be there when Draco found out _she_ was around. Maybe if he could just get to Draco first… warn him, maybe…

Well. Nothing for it now.

Blaise turned around, facing the sea. Pulling out a long, very thin wand, he slashed it twice through the air in front of him, muttering intently with eyes tightly closed. The two slices he'd made began to glow purple, and then to slowly peel back, making an opening about the size of a normal doorway. Hermione saw that Blaise was shaking with the effort of pulling the door open, scowling fiercely as he mumbled. She was starting to seriously regret her magical withdrawal. It was plain that she'd missed a lot.

The purple doorway, now perfectly shaped and hovering about two feet above the ground, stopped expanding. It flashed blue, and then sank slowly to rest on the beach. Blaise dropped his arm, panting slightly.

"There. That's done," He said in an undertone. Then he turned to Hermione and Hannah. "Pick up your things. The passage won't stay open forever. Oh, and Hannah?"

Hannah turned in the act of picking up her bag, frowning at him curiously.

"The mirror in your pocket stays here."

Hannah blanched. Far away, in the Order's kitchen, there was a collective moan.

Hermione and Hannah looked at each other, both rapidly running through all the possible ways that they could keep the mirror. Finally, unable to think of one that would actually _work, _Hannah shrugged carelessly and dropped the mirror to the sand.

Those in the Order got one last shot of Hermione and Hannah's faces looking down at them, before Blaise smashed the glass with his heel.

There was a long, long silence. Everyone looked away from the mirror on the table, examining fingernails, hems, and patches of wall. Only Sam looked at Lupin, and so she was the only one who saw him smile softly to himself, before getting to his feet.

"That's all we're going to get, I think," He said to those assembled. "We need to get to work. You all know what it is you have to do. Go do it."

Within five minutes, the kitchen was empty but for Lupin and Sam. Sam cautiously looked at Lupin's face. Yes, he was smiling again. She frowned at him, and he looked up at her, momentarily startled.

Then he smiled guiltily. "I'm sorry, Sam. It's just… I was just thinking how I was almost _relieved_ to be cut off. I wasn't sure how much longer we'd have to listen to them snipe at each other."

And he laughed, and enjoyed it. He knew that it was unlikely that he'd be able to laugh like this for _at least _the rest of the day.

**A/N: Sorry this chapter is so late in coming. School is taking a lot of adjustment (A LOT of adjustment), so writing about my pet fandoms has taken a backseat to writing about Grendel, gametes, and French verbs. Woe is me… So I'm just uploading stuff I've already had written. Shame on me. Ha ha. **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: If you really are that curious about whether or not I really own any of this, go to the first chapter. Which you should have read anyway! Slacker!**

Draco sat on a patch of rock overlooking the lake, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his thick jacket. It was by no means the sort of thing he would _ever_ have worn a few years ago. It was quite monstrous, with no style or grace at all. But it would be winter much too soon, and anything sharper was highly impractical.

How things change.

He was nervous, but trying hard to pretend that he wasn't. He had declined all offers of an armed guard or escort, thinking that it would've been a markedly unfriendly way to begin this escapade, but he regretted it now. If he'd brought a guard, he could've had someone to fetch him a mug of some bloody coffee. Caffeine, he'd found, did wonders for the nerves. Well, they heightened them, really, but in such a way that you were nervous about _everything_. Thus making your original stress much more general, and the original _object_ of your stress less… stressful.

The fact that he was analyzing the benefits of coffee for nerves told him how very nervous he was. God, he needed to get _off_ this rock. He was slowly going completely mad.

And where the hell was Zabini?

He withdrew a hand from the depths of his jacket, and consulted the wristwatch he'd gotten as a Christmas present from Severus. It was hideous, but kept perfect time. Yes, Blaise was late. How very like him.

Draco took advantage of the opportunity to curse the general uselessness of his secretary, and rested his head on his knees.

The six years had changed Draco markedly. He was much taller, and had been thinned by the years of lean living in the wildes of Greenland. He was freshly scarred as well, though the marks that covered his back and legs were invisible under his trousers and shirt.

Yes, he had fought in the battle. He'd felt obligated. And he'd killed for the first time there. And the second, third, fourth, and fifth time. Then he'd been cut down as well, by a particularly nasty curse that had ripped apart his back. He'd been left on that smoldering stretch of field, bleeding, with the stench and the mud in his nose and mouth, for hours. Finally he was dragged off into the tiny shack that served as a hospital for the wounded Death Eaters, where he had been clumsily treated and then left to fend for himself. There was no St. Mungo's for the Death Eaters left alive. They would die of their wounds, or they'd treat themselves. At the time, the fear and paranoia was so wild, that there was no guarantee that a known Death Eater wouldn't be killed upon entering a place like Mungo's.

The scars on his the back of this thighs were relatively recent. He's gotten them from a fight with the warlock who'd been living in the fortress before the Rebels had arrived. He was one man in an enormous pile of stone, and he was quite grateful to have the company, at first. But months of taking instruction from a mere _boy_ had finally gotten to him, and he'd challenged Draco to a duel by attempting to blow his legs off from behind with a cleverly-timed curse.

Well, suffice to say, it wasn't cleverly timed enough.

But the changes weren't all outwardly apparent. Maybe it was all the killing that had inwardly changed Draco. He no longer threw up after he killed someone. When he'd killed, it had always been the necessary thing to do. That didn't change the fact that he could barely sleep at night, though. Ah, well. It was a small price to pay for keeping himself and his people alive. That was enough for Draco.

Or it had been.

But though the act of killing had clearly changed the _direction_ of his life, it was the actual deaths that had probably wrought the most change in him. After the Epic Battle, long before he'd had any thought of fortresses or rebels, he'd heard his mother and father killed from his hiding place in the floor beneath them. All because they'd been on the wrong side, and a drunken mob of neighbors had been unable to let them live for it. Draco, at the time only just eighteen, was suddenly homeless. He had no family, no safe adult to turn to, and he had barely recovered from the devastating damage done to his back. So he'd taken the only option he'd been able to. He'd grown up, and survived.

People began to flock to him. He was the poster child for those wronged by the Order and the wizarding world. He was a symbol for the survivors, and the _fact_ that he'd survived gave them hope. Then, without really meaning too, he found himself no longer a poster child, but a leader. And he was _good_ at it. It was the first thing he'd really _ever_ been good at.

Draco shifted, trying to keep warm. Looking up, he watched a flock of geese soar over the lake. It would've been beautiful, if he hadn't been so annoyed.

"Where are you, Zabini?" he growled through gritted teeth

"Right here," Blaise said from behind him.

Draco leapt up and whirled on his friend, automatically reaching for his wand. He relaxed at the sight of the other man standing before a growing rectangle of purple light, and dropped his hand.

"Don't _do_ that!" he snapped "It's ridiculous. Where have you _been?_ I've been dying out here and—what?" he asked, taking in Blaise's rumpled appearance and overall look of barely suppressed panic. "What is it?"

"Well…" Blaise said, looking over his shoulder nervously "…it's… well… Draco, they've sent… Um…"

Draco's mouth went dry. "Who? Who've they sent? Where are they?"

"I managed to get a little way ahead of them. I wanted to warn—oh, shit."

They were through. Hannah stepped down onto the stark rock, and looked around her with trepidation. Hermione was just behind her.

She saw Draco at the exact same time he saw her. They both froze.

Draco went absolutely white. His gray eyes were wider than Blaise had ever seen them, and his hands slowly clenched themselves into fists.

Hermione had flushed a deep, dark pink. Her eyes were as wide as his, and they shot fire. She was starting to shake, clutching her bag in her hands. Her knuckles has gone white.

"_You_?" Draco hissed, barely able to force the words out from behind a suddenly locked jaw. "They sent _you?"_

"They sent me too, you know." Hannah pointed out. She was opening her mouth to add something, but Blaise seized her arm and dragged her back, making frantic shushing noises.

Hermione was apparently frozen. She felt sick. She was going to explode, she knew it. It was taking all of her self-control not to fly at him, not to push him off that cliff and never think of him again.

"Yes," She said, trembling. "They sent me."

Draco was shaking now too. He could not believe this. He could not _believe _Hermione Granger was standing in front of him, on _his_ land, in _his_ home. There was a roaring in his ears; his vision was beginning to waver slightly.

"_Why?"_ He raged, lunging forward a step. "Why you?"

"Why not?" she shouted back at him, not moving "You're the one who invited me! Are you surprised?" She was scared, yes (When had he gotten so _tall?), _But she was also furious. She could remember the last time she'd seen him. Of all the memories she'd tried to banish, that was the one that could be counted on to keep her up sobbing into the morning. She felt the bile rise in her throat, but she _would not_ throw up in front of him.

"You vanished!" he said, every line in his long body rigid with the effort of standing still. "You were _not_ supposed to be the one to come."

"Yes, that would've been convenient, wouldn't it? If I _had_ disappeared? One less person who knew the truth about that you, right? You're still such a… such a _brat_." she spat, throwing her bag away from her.

Draco snarled, a horrible, inhuman sound, and plunged his hand into his jacket. Hermione's face twisted, and she had her own arm reaching for the wand in her back pocket in an instant.

Anticipating this, Blaise was before Draco in a moment, one hand on his shoulder, the other fastened around his wrist. Hannah raced to Hermione, pulling her around and gripping her shoulders with both hands.

"_You. Have. To calm. Down."_ Blaise hissed into Draco's face _"Now. Is not. The time."_

"Listen to me!" Hannah said fiercely, shaking Hermione slightly harder than was really necessary. "We are here to do a _job!_ Pull yourself together!"

"How can you say that?" Hermione howled, looking over her shoulder at Draco "How can you say that when you know who he is? When you know what he's done? When you know that he's a _monster?"_

Draco heard. He flushed, and his eyes took on a wild look that Blaise had never seen in them before. He was suddenly much stronger, tugging away from Blaise with suddenly frantic strength. _This is too much_, Blaise thought desperately, clutching Draco as tightly as he could. _I knew he hated her, but this is insane…_

"Stop it!" Hannah said, pulling Hermione around to face her again and shouting into her face. "I know it's hard! But you have to stop this! Now!"

Hermione took a deep breath to shout something back, and realized, to her horror, that she was about to cry. She tried again, but she choked on the words, and went rigid, staring fixedly into the space before her. _This isn't it, _she thought, closing her eyes for a moment _I won't let this be all. He can't win this time. _She grimaced, and bit down on her lip to bite back the angry sob trying to wriggle out. Unaware of her thoughts, Hannah's grip relaxed, and she averted her gaze to give Hermione some privacy.

Blaise was having marginally less success. Draco wasn't shouting, but he was straining to get at Hermione, enraged at being called a _monster_ by the likes of _her. _Fortunately, Blaise was taller, and could hold him. He was still gripping Draco's wrist, trying to keep him from cursing Hermione into tiny bits.

"Let me go!" Draco snarled "I'm going to kill her this time! This time she won't be able to sneak up on me from behind! Get out of my way!"

"Control yourself!" Blaise said harshly. "This is not about you and her! You need to stop acting like a bloody _child!"_

Draco shook his head, eyes fixed on Hermione's back. "This is _precisely _about me and her!"

"No it isn't!" Blaise exploded, shoving Draco back. Draco fell hard against the rocks, and gaped at Blaise, stunned. "This is no time for petty revenge and wounded pride! Remember _who you are_, for Christ's sake! What the _fuck_ would killing her accomplish?"

"It'd make me feel better," Draco said sullenly. He was still slightly shocked. Blaise had _shoved _him.

"Oh. Well, that's fine, then," Blaise said sarcastically, folding his arms in front of his chest. "You alright?"

"Fine," Draco said through gritted teeth. "In fact, I think I might kill _you_ now."

Blaise scoffed. "You'd never. Who else'd put up with all your shit?"

They looked at each other, and then both relaxed. But Draco _did_ refuse to let Blaise help him to his feet. His back really _hurt_.

Hermione was resolutely facing away from the cozy male-bonding going on behind her. Hannah was a comforting presence beside her, murmuring softly about calming down, but Hermione was still shaking. She couldn't believe it. She could not believe that she was here, and he was too, and it all felt like some sort of nightmare. And the _last_ thing she needed was to burst into tears in front of him, but that's exactly what she was afraid she was going to do.

She hated him so much. She could feel the hate coursing through her, making her ears ring. A chorus of angry voices in her mind were all screaming at her to leap at him. To get rid of the man who'd killed so many others, to erase all traces of him and his horrible stain on her life.

But, she admitted to herself, Hannah was right. They were here to do a job. And she would have to just do it. And try not to either cry or scream whenever she saw him.

She knew she had to do it, but she doubted that she really could.

Draco took a few deep, slow breaths. Blaise wasn't holding him, but he had placed himself between Draco and the emissaries. Draco briefly registered this as vaguely ironic before focusing on the visitors themselves. The other one, who looked vaguely familiar, was looking at him. Her expression was unfathomable. Unnerved, he looked stiffly away. Inconceivable. Hermione Granger. Just _thinking _of her made him furious. _Hermione Granger_. Taller, and older, but still markedly _her_. Still the same girl that he'd last seen six years ago. It felt like yesterday. He would never, _ever_ forget that night. Or her part in it. He could allow his hate for Harry Potter to slide away with time, but this hate was intrinsic. It was always with him, often ignored, and occasionally dimmed, but there. Always.

He had to pull himself together. Blaise was watching him warily. Draco gave him a small reassuring nod, and turned away from them, looking again out at the lake.

"Zabini, please show our guests to their rooms. See that they're comfortable," Every word felt like an enormous effort. "And I'll send word to Matthews. Just so he can… prepare everyone. Get ready for a bloody big mess anyway."

"Are you coming in?"

"Eventually." He said, the tone of his voice warning Blaise that the conversation was now over. Apparently Blaise understood. There was silence, and when Draco turned around again, the three were gone. If he squinted, he could see their outlines against the rising wall of the fortress.

Hermione Granger. _Hermione Granger._ Robbed of his red-hot fury, he sank to the ground, and allowed himself some time to shake a little. Just until the panic subsided.

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**A/N: I really can't tell you how much fun I had writing this chapter. But I have a new respect for anyone who has action in their stories. It _is_ hard to write! This is officially the last of the stock chapters, so… um… just be ready for a longer wait. Longer than the last wait, I mean. Sorry!**

**Please review. I love it when you review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Your questions bore me. Away with you! I own nothing!**

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Hermione was calmer.

Or at least, she was thinking calm thoughts. Oceans. Woods. Reading. Fireplaces. Tea. _Draco fucking Malfoy!_ No, no, _calm_ things. Puppies, and… and…

She couldn't believe it. It was _almost _funny. She _almost_ felt like laughing! Had Lupin known? Had he _known_ that Malfoy was the one at the helm of this fiasco?

He wouldn't do that to me, she thought desperately. He _wouldn't…_ Not Lupin.

She would've asked Hannah, but Hannah and Blaise were a few steps in front of her, bickering fiercely.

She suddenly felt very lonely.

At least he was every bit as upset to see her as she was to see him. It would, after all, have been embarrassing to fly at him if he had forgotten all about her.

Plainly, he hadn't.

She didn't know what she _thought_ had happened to him. She'd never thought that he was dead, because his body was never found. All the bodies turned up, eventually. But he never entered into her mind at…

No, that wasn't true. For the first year after the Battle, she'd wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat, convinced that he'd be standing at the foot of her bed, leaking blood onto her sheets. These panicky dreams had gotten so bad that she'd taken to sleeping in closets. If he couldn't _fit_ in there with her, then he couldn't drip blood on _anything_. This logic comforted her enormously, but it had been very hard to explain to her parents.

They had been a little afraid of her for a while after the Battle. She had seemed so _changed._

Well. She wondered often how they'd _expected _her to act. And then she'd try not to pass it off as Muggle foolishness. As time went on, she grew more and more attracted to the relative simplicity of Muggle life, and she didn't want to alienate her only link to it.

But, of course, Malfoy had never shown up in her room. There was no way that he could have. Hermione wasn't really supposed to _know _about it, but she had been very heavily guarded after the Battle. Maybe it was because she had been so close to Harry, or because she had been a central player in the whole ordeal.

Either way, she'd been more terrified than gratified for the help. The fact that they were _guarding_ her meant that there was something for her to be guarded _from_, wasn't there? And all the spells surrounding her made her ears tingle distractingly.

The fortress ahead of her was one of those ancient buildings that would loom threateningly even if it was shrunk down to the size of a dollhouse. The stone of the outer wall was a deep black, and looked too shiny to be ordinary stone. It was _huge_, at least seven stories high, with no windows to relieve the very, _very_ ominous black. Hermione had heard about magically constructed buildings, but never something on this scale.

She shivered, and tried to wriggle deeper into her jacket by rounding her shoulders and futilely bobbing her head like a vulture. It was really _cold_. How was it that Blaise wasn't even shivering? Well, he might've been shivering, actually. He was more or less an agitated blur.

_That's why he was so shocked to see me_, she realized suddenly. _He knew that this would happen. He knew how Malfoy would react to seeing me. _

_You vanished, _Malfoy had said. _You weren't supposed to come_. What was that supposed to mean? She hadn't gone _anywhere_. Just to Scotland. Most people had a much different definition for the word 'vanishing'.

She sighed, trying to force herself to relax. _Calm… down…_

_How am I supposed to calm down? _She thought frantically, her hands tightening around the straps of her duffel bag, the waves of panic getting perilously higher. _I'm all alone, in a world I don't really understand anymore, far away from anyone who could help me or who even knows where I _am_, and I'm going to be surrounded by hordes of angry wizards who'd probably leap at the opportunity to kill me. Some of them have probably already tried it. And _he's _here… the _last_ one I wanted to see. Ever again. _

Her mind kept wanting to leap back to her last memory of Draco. Almost grateful for the distraction, she forced it away, knowing that she _would_ cry if she revisited it.

As she had always done when trying to force her mind away from a memory she didn't want to touch, she remembered something else. _Taking O.W.L.s, surrounded by the sounds of scratching quills and rustling paper, relishing the challenge of the questions on her own paper. Sitting on the floor of the library, not reading, not talking, just listening to the sounds of the castle and feeling _wonderful. _Christmas at Hogwarts. Birthday presents from home. _

It was a shame that most of her happiest memories involved Harry and Ron. They were often the main things she wanted to _keep_ from remembering.

Hermione let out a great sigh, and felt the tension sliding off her shoulders and back.

This is just another problem. Handle it like you would any others. Don't run, and don't cry. Face it, and don't fear it. To do anything less would be an insult to your own skill.

Yes.

Hermione stopped behind Blaise and Hannah, who stood looking up at the wall, and she allowed herself a smile.

…………………………………

Draco got to his feet, eyes down at the rock around him.

He looked up, towards the fortress. He couldn't see his visitors any more. They were probably at the wall, if they weren't inside already.

He had no _time_ for this… _fragility_. He needed to do his _job_. He was acting like a child, as Zabini had forcefully told him.

Draco rubbed meditatively at his sore tailbone, trying to think of an evil enough punishment for his friend. He couldn't dock his pay. Draco had never paid him anything.

He checked himself, and scowled. _Focus._

Turning away from the fortress and facing the ocean, he pulled a tiny golden globe out of a jacket pocket. Holding it close to his face, he breathed slowly onto it, watching his breath cloud the translucent surface and freeze.

The globe crackled, and then vibrated slightly in his hand. Good. The globes had been faulty recently. It seemed that he didn't need to curse his engineers after all.

"Yes, sir?" came the voice of Victor Matthews. Low and rasping, it still carried the slight accent he'd saved from his childhood in France.

"Our visitors are here, Victor," Draco said, staring out at the ocean as he spoke into the globe. "And there are a few problems."

"Problems?" Victor's voice was surprised. He had always been of the opinion that the young leader _never_ had problems. Draco didn't bother to tell him that that was only because he would never admit that they _were_ problems. "How eez theez pozzible?"

"I didn't think things through as well as I should have, I suppose," Draco said mildly, though he was glowering fiercely. "But we need to deal with the problems, and _then_ analyze how they were made. Are you going to let me tell you what they are?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I'm sorry, sir. Please do so."

"Our visitors are both women."

"Damn. Young weemen?"

"Yes."

"Double damn. Weeell, I suppose I shall just try to protect zhem for as long as I can. I should start right away sir, eef you don't—"

"There's more, Victor."

"_More?"_

Draco's grimace faded, and he almost smiled. "Yes, Victor. More," Draco took a deep breath, trying to calm the flutterings of panic that were slowly wrapping around his legs. "These women… I knew them at school."

"At school?" Victor asked slowly. Draco could almost see the big man narrowing his eyes and scratching at the old scar on his neck. "So then that means… Does it? Does zhat mean what I zhink it does?"

"Yes," Draco said, turning away from the view of the ocean and looking back at the fortress walls. "They fought at the battle. And one of them…"

Victor waited. He wasn't going to help Draco with this one, dammit. He'd have to say it. He'd have to admit that it was true, and that she was… that she was _here_.

"… one of them is Hermione Granger." He finished, stabbing at the ground with the toe of his boot.

Victor let out a low whistle. There was a muffled _whumph_ sound as the man sat heavily down, hopefully on a chair. "Hermione Granger?" He whispered. "Zee brain? Zee girl who was friends with Potter and Weasley? Zee one who fought so wildly that night? _Zhat _Hermione Granger?"

Draco didn't dignify that with a response. He continued stabbing at the ground with a toe, and waited for Victor to compose himself.

"Ah. Alright. Well, I'll get zee word out, so zhat zhere won't be such a… er… hubbub. You want me to warn zee people, yes? Give zhem time for stewing?"

"Yes, thanks. I'll be there soon to help you out. But they should be inside almost any second. Move fast, or just tell someone else to do it."

"Ha. Zhat only ever works for you. Zhey don't listen to _me_." Draco could hear him smiling.

"Hmm. Good luck, Victor." Draco said, and wiped the globe clean of frost with a gloved hand. It shivered once in his palm, and then laid still. He dropped it into his pocket, looking at the fortress. It looked _different_, now, somehow.

Because she's here?

No. That wasn't the reason. It wasn't _allowed_ to be the reason.

The reason Draco _would_ allow, and the one that made him smile to himself as he began the walk back to the fortress, was that the arrival of these _good_ and _upstanding_ people meant that it was beginning. All these months and years… and now it was here.

He would be prepared for it. He wouldn't let Hermione Granger's presence faze him.

…………………………

Hermione and Draco stared at the fortress walls, and they _swore_, in the name of those they loved, that they _would_ win this. And they both really believed that they would. Because they were on the right side, this time. And this time, they'd be stronger. This time, they wouldn't make the mistakes they'd made six years ago.

And they both smiled, wearily, but with a touch of anticipation.

It was beginning.

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**A/N: Ok, this chapter actually didn't take me much time. The first part was gathering dust for a _while_, but I got a second wind or something just after I posted the last chapter. Pesky fanfic muse, making me write tortured introspectives when I'm supposed to be studying Bio. **

**This is really more like a chapter nine: part II, but whatever. I'm posting them separately. Sorry. Am I the only one who thinks it's pretty funny that the last line of chapter TEN is "it was beginning?" I only realized that while proofreading. Yuk yuk yuk. **

**I have a question. Is writing out Victor's accent making anyone insane? I'm not sure how big of a character he's going to be, so maybe it won't matter. Let me know what you think. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: This doesn't matter! I own nothing, I'm getting paid for nothing! Is it nice to rub it in?**

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**Six years ago, more or less**

A younger, unscarred Hermione sat alone on the steps of the school. She wasn't reading, and she wasn't talking. She was just sitting, and taking in the fresh air. It was just getting warmer, and the grounds were absolutely breathtaking.

_Stumbling out the door, supporting someone; dragging them over the ground. The air was full of flames, and of screams as she was carried along in the crush of panicked children. Someone was screaming right in her ear; a wordless scream that wouldn't stop._

She sighed, and looked around her. She could hear the soft murmur of voices as someone crossed through the hall behind her. She was done with her lessons for the day, and she could just relax until Harry and Ron came back.

_The grounds were full of people, and more arrived with every second. Wizards and witches ran to meet the stream of children, trying to stem the panic. They grabbed children and vanished, to appear again and grab another. Hermione didn't know if they were from the Ministry or not. Everyone looked the same through the smoke. Someone took the first-year from her, shouting something in her ear. Hermione couldn't hear what they said. It was too loud. It was too much._

Soon she'd be done with this year. She'd be going on to—well, to something. She brushed away the anxiety with an effort that was almost habitual. There was no rush, she told herself constantly. And today, it worked. It was hard to worry about anything on a day like today.

_People pushed past her, driving her away from the safety of the forest. She struggled against them, desperate to join the rest of the school in the safety of the trees. It was funny that it had always been called 'the Forbidden Forest', when now it felt like the only safe place left._

She had plenty of time to decide what she wanted to do. Maybe she'd even become a teacher. Smiling at the thought, Hermione twisted to look up at the school behind and above her. Her home.

_There was a great explosion, and the force of it knocked Hermione off her feet. She looked up, and the astronomy tower was gone. It was just… gone. There was a column of green smoke where it should have been, and that was all. There was another explosion, and the front door of the school shattered. Great doors that had lasted through the centuries, and they ripped apart like as though they were made of paper. Hermione lay on the ground, unable to tear her eyes away as more and more of the school vanished in the noise and insanity. Hagrid's house was on fire…_

Squinting into the light of the sun, Hermione shielded her eyes and looked down at two figures walking towards her. Getting to her feet, she waved to them, calling out as they waved back.

"_Hermione! Hermione!" Someone was touching her arm, then hitting her hard in the shoulder. She looked up, tears blurring her vision._

"_Harry…" He was little more than a shadowy shape, his glasses bizarrely reflecting the orange light of the fires._

"_Get to the Forest. It'll be safe there," His voice was hoarse, and he was almost screaming so that she could hear him. "Make sure everyone's okay."_

"_Come with me!" she yelled into his face, gripping his arms tightly. Why did it feel like he was already vanishing?_

"_I can't. This is it, Hermione. It's the end of the story," No, no, it isn't. Don't _say_ that, Harry. "I need to beat him, now."_

_Hermione shook her head violently, fighting off the horrible feeling that she'd never see him again._

"_It's alright," He said, pulling her to her feet, and ducking as something shot through the air over their heads. "I'll see you after, I promise."_

_And then he was gone, leaving her to stare into the melee that rushed to fill the gap he left behind. She stared as if she hadn't noticed the madness before, taking in the sounds, the _smell

_Afraid, horribly afraid, but resolute, Hermione drew her wand. _

She ran lightly to meet them across the serene yard, filled with a sense of _rightness_. Everything was going to be fine after all, wasn't it? Talking to them, being around them, she knew that it would. There would be a happy ending, she was sure. The future was before them, and there was nothing they couldn't do.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Why would I write fanfiction if I owned the whole series? I'd have enough power to make a whole spin off from this little thing! So nope, I own nothing. Read.

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Hermione shut the door behind her carefully, listening the sound of Victor's steps echo around the stark, stone hall.

So. Here they were.

Hermione barely knew how it had happened. There had been so many faces… faces that she knew. Faces that… Okay. That was enough.

"No more agonizing," she said as she walked across the room. "I've got a job to do, remember?"

She let her bag drop to the floor, and looked at the room around her. It was a small, stone room in the fortress' main building. Their guide, Victor Matthews, a French man with decorative tattoos covering his arms and neck, had told them that their rooms were in the residential wing; the offices and meeting rooms of the fortress were all on the lower levels.

Blaise had vanished after letting them into the castle, muttering fiercely to himself and fiddling with the mug tied to his pants. There were so many _people…_

Right. Stop it. You're doing it again. No more melodramatic despair. It was time for work. But though she knew she had to start _now_, she couldn't help but stare in awe at the room around her. It was… it was a nice room. Small, and nice. It had a soft carpet, and a generous fireplace. There was a small table against one wall, and a big chair. The bed had a canopy! She'd _always_ loved canopy beds!

_Well. This could be alright,_ she thought to herself, smiling a little as she explored the desk and the small bookshelf next to the bed. _I'm in a huge, forbidding castle with hordes of people who are certainly foul and evil, and there are several of them who I know personally, which makes this really embarrassing, but look! I have a canopy bed and a fireplace!_

She spent a happy minute figuring out every bit of the room, including the secret passageways behind the headboard and in the back of her closet. Then she decided to get to work. She moved over to her discarded bag, and rummaged in it until she found the cute little notebook with the frolicking puppies. They barked silently at her, putting their paws up against the inside of the notebook cover. She gave herself a moment to grin and roll her eyes at them before flipping the book open.

No new messages from Lupin. The last thing written had been the message telling her to get ready. She rummaged again in the bag and dragged up a pen. She thought for a moment, and then wrote:

**We've gotten into the fortress safely, and are in our rooms now. Hannah's down the hall. Did you know who was in charge here?**

She waited for the response.

And she waited a little longer.

Hm.

Well, there were a number of reasons why there was no answer. One very big one was that Lupin was practically running England's wizarding world; he had plenty of problems to keep him busy.

But still…

Hermione continued writing anyway, telling him about the buildings in the fortress, the people she'd met, and about some of what she'd observed. This last was very brief. It's hard to observe much of anything when you've gone from nervous to enraged to tearful to nervous again in the space of an hour.

And then, because she knew she had to, she took a deep breath and wrote:

**Draco Malfoy is their leader. **

She tried as hard as she could to think of something to put after that, but no ideas were forthcoming. So she sighed, slid the book into the pocket of her jacket, and left the room. Maybe Hannah could help her think of some way to spy on a person without wanting to leap out and strangle them whenever they met.

The fortress was big, and stony. That was about it. The monotony of the stone was broken up by the odd tapestry every once in a while, but after looking at one, Hermione averted her eyes. Warlocks were strange. Very, _very_ strange. And with decidedly unnerving artistic sensibilities.

Hermione walked past the door to Hannah's room without really thinking about it, but she didn't turn around. Now _was_ a good time to explore a little. She didn't make any pretensions to knowing Malfoy at all well (there; she'd thought his name without feeling as though nails were being dragged across her brain. She _knew _she'd be able to beat this), but she would bet anything that he was now in either a bedroom or study, sulking. It would fit. So she would be able to roam for a while, without having to worry about meeting him in a dark corridor.

Not that there were any other kinds of corridors for them to meet in. Narrow, dark, stony corridors _were_ the fortress. At least as far as she could tell. _This is going to be such fun_, Hermione thought, finding a staircase and taking it to the floor below. _I can hardly wait for the claustrophobia to set in._

But it was very quiet. You'd think that a nest of evil dissention like this one would be a little more… lively. But there was barely anyone around. Hermione heard hushed voices from behind some of the closed doors that she passed, but didn't go inside. She did have _some_ sense of self-preservation, for all that she'd signed up for this insane venture.

Hermione glanced at her watch, unsurprised that the digital face was blank and lifeless. Well, if the magic around the place was so thick as to keep anyone from outside it seeing what was going on, it made sense that her Muggle-made watch wouldn't be able to stand up to it. Poor thing. Not even three years of unremarkable complacency, and it was suddenly being dragged into a magical mess it wasn't prepared for.

But it wasn't _that_ late, Hermione though as she stopped to look out a narrow window. Not late enough to justify the emptiness of this place. It couldn't be later than… five? Six? What time had she left her flat? How long had their journey to this place taken? How—

"Hermione Granger?" the startled voice from down the hall jerked her out of her thoughts as she whirled around, immediately recognizing the figure coming towards her down the hall.

Except… except he was… rolling?

"Snape?" She asked, her voice louder than she'd meant it to be, as her former professor wheeled himself to about ten feet away from her. Hermione felt, absurdly, that they were squaring up against each other. Well. Maybe they were.

"So it is you," he said, frowning. His dark stare was slightly less intimidating when it was roughly three feet closer to the ground than it had been. Hermione tried to quash the flash of pity flowering in her stomach before it grew, but still… He looked so small now.

"Yes, it's me," she said, suddenly remembering why she shouldn't be pitying this man. "Apparently I'm just fated to be constantly running into old friends."

The barb didn't even hit. He raised an eyebrow at her, almost to acknowledge it as it flashed by. His hair was graying, and it was shorter than it had been. And he had more lines on his face. But his tall, lanky frame was no longer so terrifying when it was folded into a wheelchair almost identical to one owned by her aunt.

"I take it you've seen our fearless leader, then," he said coolly. "And how did he take to seeing you? He certainly didn't know they'd been sending you."

She didn't say anything. It was almost revolting to be in the same place as this… this man. And he, infuriatingly enough, seemed to not care about her in the least. He could at least have the grace to pretend to hate her.

"Ah. I thought he might react like that," Snape said, his chair moving forward a little. He peered into her face, taking in the changes wrought by six years. "He has remembered you. That must flatter your delicate ego, at any rate."

To his surprise, she smiled. It was a somewhat terse and rueful smile, but a smile nonetheless. How very strange.

"Yes," she said, turning away from her former professor and starting to walk away. "I was most flattered."

"You shouldn't turn your back to anyone in this place, Hermione Granger," he called after her.

She turned then, and looked hard at him.

"I'm not afraid of turning my back on you, Snape. As I recall, you're much more fond of killing face-to-face, aren't you? I'll just have to make sure I don't come across you at the top of any towers."

She was sickly gratified to see him flinch, and then she turned away and kept walking, all traces of calm gone.

_This is not a nice place_, she thought to herself, pausing when she was sure he was no longer near her to lean against the wall and quietly hyperventilate. _This is not a nice place, and you must prepare yourself to meet people who don't like you. People who don't like you, and who _you know.

What fun this would be, she thought, pressing a hand over her eyes and shaking her head wearily.

Two floors down, Blaise was standing outside the door to Draco's office, trying to look cool while standing on his tiptoes and darting little anxious glances at the door.

Blaise had been waiting, poised to rush in when Draco started throwing things. He'd been poised for about five minutes, and yet there hadn't been any noise. He'd almost mapped out the path of destruction Draco would choose. First the curved bowl would go slamming into the wall, and then the elaborately carved elephant would be launched at the door, where it would stick and quiver in the wood. He'd then move on to the desk itself, throwing papers and quills all over the place…

But there was no sound at all from inside the office. Draco had returned from the cliffs cold and resolute, had gone to see Victor, and had issued a general statement to the inhabitants of the fortress. That had caused a mess, and there had been many, _many_ people who wanted to talk privately with Draco after that. He'd obliged most of them and sent Victor to deal with the rest, and had only now retreated into his study.

But he hadn't been throwing things. And Blaise was getting distinctly worried.

"Blaise," Draco suddenly said. Blaise lost his balance and almost toppled to the floor. "I know you're out there. You might as well come in."

Blaise entered carefully, in case there were any shards of priceless glass or dead bodies littering the floor. There weren't. There was just the usual mess that came with power, and one thin leader sitting cross-legged on top of his desk with his face in his pale hands.

Blaise stood uncomfortably at the door for a moment before crossing to the chair sitting before the desk and perching on its edge. He waited for Draco to speak, as he always did.

"I don't," Draco said roughly, raising his head from his hands to look blankly at the floor. He tried again. "I don't know how I could have missed this. I'm usually much better at predicting things. At predicting _people_. And," he faltered again, closing his eyes wearily. "And I thought I had Lupin figured. I mean, he taught me for a whole year. That's not much time, but I figured it was enough. Enough to figure out how he'd… who he'd… I never expected this," he let out a short laugh, sinking his head into his hands again. "Stupid bastard."

"You, or the werewolf?" Blaise asked.

"Mm. Well, I meant him, but it would go for me as well, wouldn't it? Even if he didn't know I was here, which is somewhat more likely, why would he send _her_? She's been gone from the wizarding world for years, while the rest of the _heroes_," he spat the word like a curse. _There_ was something he hadn't done in a while. "Are happily running the government. She has nothing to do with the present situation, and no connection with the Rebels or the Order as a whole. What is she now? A textbook name that people would wonder briefly about as they had to write paragraphs about the Battle. Maybe after she died they'd raise another monument in the little hovel where she was born, or something. She _was_ the past. She was supposed to stay there!"

"Life isn't poetry, you know," Blaise said dryly. "Just because you think she should stay a part of your past doesn't mean—"

"Did I _say_ she was a part of my past?" Draco cut in, eyes flashing as he stared at Blaise. "I mean a part of _the_ past! A part of the Battle, and of things that are _over with!_ Her place in my life has nothing to do with it. Other than being somewhat uncomfortable," he amended when he saw the look Blaise gave him.

"So then who are you angry with?" Blaise asked as Draco hauled himself off the desk and over to the window. "Lupin? Hermione?"

Draco frowned and deflated, groping for the mug of coffee behind him on his desk. "Neither of them really. I'm just annoyed that I hadn't considered the possibility that the envoy would be her. It should have entered into my calculations, and it didn't. I don't know why. But if I had been able to consider it, then that little scene on the cliffs would have been much more…"

"Calm?" Blaise suggested.

"Well, no. I was thinking more one-sided," Draco said, narrowing his eyes as his sipped from the mug. "There was no way that could have been calm. At least there I can't blame myself."

Blaise looked at the Rebel's King, and wondered if the man had somehow lost his fire.

Draco turned to face him just as he thought it, eyes suddenly full of bottomless, barely repressed fury. "Just keep the Mudblood away from me, Blaise," he said, his voice rising involuntarily. "Keep her away from me, and maybe she won't ruin _everything_," His pale glare pinned Blaise to the chair. The two men stared at each other, one paling under his dark skin, the other's cheeks tinged with pink. Finally Draco jerked his head towards the door, and turned away from Blaise. "Go and find Severus. I want to talk to him before he finds her and says something absurd."

Blaise departed a little more speedily than he'd meant too, haunted by the rage in Draco's eyes.

Waiting until the door was firmly shut, Draco set down his mug carefully, and looked at his hands. Hm. They were shaking. He jammed his hands under his armpits, and stared again out the window. She couldn't ruin everything. She couldn't. Not again.

Well, this time he was wiser, wasn't he? This time he wouldn't be such a moronic child. If it hadn't turned out as seriously as it had, he could have laughed. But he had learned one thing about Hermione Granger from that night, six years ago. Never trust her. And never, _never_ turn your back on her.

Draco took another sip from his mug, one finger reaching out to touch the frosted glass of the window. He thought of that night, of the panic and the fear and the guilt. And he remembered her flying down the stairs towards him, her hands outstretched—

_I should have let her fall,_ Draco thought miserably, _It would have made all this a good deal less complicated than it already is.

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**A/N: Sorry again for the late, late update! My excuse this time is that I just finished (!!!) my Labyrinth fanfic, and that took up a lot of my muse power. The poor thing was utterly exhausted. But I bribed it with hot chocolate, and this time I got more plot, less trippy flashbacks! Please review!**


	13. Chapter 13

Blaise found Severus in the library, as he'd expected to. The older man had pushed himself into the corner between 17th and 18th century German history, and was apparently trying to read two huge volumes at once, while balancing another two on his knees. He looked up and started when Blaise poked his head around the shelf, and lost his balance. Books tumbled to the floor, and the aged former professor glowered at Zabini, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh, dear," Blaise said in a thoroughly unrepentant tone "I didn't mean to startle you, Severus. Here, let me help you pick those up."

"There's no need for that, Zabini," Snape said dryly, then cutting directly past small talk, as usual. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this little visit? Not that I don't just _love_ to have my research interrupted."

Blaise shrugged the remark off. He'd been dealt worse by the crotchety old veteran. "I've just been to see Draco," Blaise said, adopting a tone of business and perching on the edge of a low shelf so he could address Snape eye-to-eye. "He wants to talk to you."

"About leaving Granger well enough alone, I expect," Snape said. "He needn't bother. I've already seen her."

"What on Earth were you doing in the residential wing, Severus?" Blaise asked with some surprise. "I thought you slept in the dungeons!"

"Ha," Snape said flatly. "But I wasn't in the residential wing. She was wandering around just upstairs, by the conference rooms. I wasn't expecting to see her, but that head of hair is unmistakable."

"Oh, no," Blaise groaned. "You said something…_caustic_ to her, didn't you?"

"I just gave her some advice," Snape said, frowning. "And then she walked away from me. She's still the same child she was years ago, after all. So convinced that she knows everything."

"So, she didn't try and attack you?" Blaise asked. "No screaming, or wailing, or scratching?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "No. I suspect she was moved with pity at seeing me in such a handicapped state."

"Hmm."

"I take it she's been attacking other people, then?"

"Well, not _a lot_ of other people," Blaise said thoughtfully. "In fact, only one, as far as I know. She went after Draco the moment she saw him. They were both more than a little upset to see each other, though this information goes no farther than you and me." Blaise wasn't worried about Snape spreading anything around. The old man was nothing if not discreet.

"That's hardly surprising," Snape said in a very bored tone of voice. "Not that I saw it, but I gather the six-year animosity between them lessened some time before the Battle. I'm sure they came face to face during it, since there were relatively few on the grounds at the start. There was probably some sort of confrontation."

"The animosity lessened?" Blaise asked. "You mean…"

Snape scowled with distaste. "Oh, please. Nothing like that. There was a party after the last Quidditch match, and Hermione escorted a very drunken Draco back to the Slytherin common room. The rest of the house was very surprised to see _her _practically carrying him in. But she seemed to be familiar, if not exactly friendly, with him. So perhaps they found some sort of equal ground in the days before."

"When was all this?" Blaise asked in surprise. He didn't remember Hermione Granger arriving in his common room. He would certainly have remembered _that_, especially if she had arrived supporting a drunken Draco. Hell, he would have certainly remembered a drunken Draco. That hadn't happened often.

"You were… ah… elsewhere," Snape said. "On your way to St. Mungo's, I think."

Blaise's eyes widened. "Ahh… that's right. The championship was… So they got to be friends _two days_ before the Battle?"

"Well, calling them 'friends' would be a little strong."

Blaise sat back to think about this. Perhaps not friends, but even cold politeness between the two of them would be remarkable. And then they'd met in the Battle, as the school burned around them. And found themselves on opposite sides. Draco had played some sort of instrumental part in the Dark Lord's arrival in the school, probably, though he hadn't confided in Blaise at the time or since. Granger must have realized it as soon as she saw him on the grounds. They must have fought, and…

'_This time she won't be able to sneak up on me from behind!'_ Draco had yelled when he'd seen Hermione. So maybe they hadn't faced each other. Maybe Hermione had just drawn her conclusions, and…. At any rate, it seemed that Hermione had won. But then why was she so agitated? If she'd beaten him, wouldn't she be just a little more superior towards him now? That's how Blaise treated _his _beaten enemies.

"There's no figuring out those two, I suppose," Blaise said finally. "Just try not to upset her again. And go see Draco. He'll want to lecture you about it, I've no doubt."

"All I get is lectures," Snape grumbled. "Would you move those damn books back onto the shelves and out of my way? I can't get around them."

Blaise obliged, and Snape wheeled himself out of his nook and away. Blaise watched him go, and then leant back to close his eyes. How did Snape know so much about what had happened with Draco and Granger?

"Is he finally gone?"

Blaise was too tired to stand up. He just rolled his head over to see Hermione Granger's bushy head peering at him from around the shelf.

"Speak of the devil," he said, sounding bored. "Were you stuck back there this entire time?" _Did she hear us? _

"I couldn't get out without him seeing me," she said ruefully, cautiously coming into full view, but not sitting or even coming near to him. "He looked up whenever anyone passed by. I expect you startled him because he didn't hear you coming."

"I don't know why I'm even surprised you're here," Blaise said, "It figures that the first thing you'd do on arriving anyplace would be to find the library."

"Ha. And most people stay well away from libraries in their workplaces. Just my luck you and Snape both decide to show up while I was here."

"He's always here, I'm afraid," Blaise said, hauling himself to his feet. "So there goes that idea, unless you want to help him with his research."

"Researching what?" She asked, looking interested.

"I've never asked," Blaise said brusquely. "He'd only get nasty about it. And insulting."

"Hmm," Hermione said, turning her eyes to the books in the shelves above Blaise's head. He noticed (force of habit) that she was still standing far enough away from him so he couldn't reach her, and close enough to the end of the shelf so she could make a hasty retreat if he made any sudden moves. He hadn't been enormously aware of Hermione while they were at school, just because not many were worthy of his notice then. He wished now that he could remember a little more of her former mannerisms. Was this caution instinct, or had it been learned?

"When you disappeared for all those years," Blaise finally asked, voicing the question that was floating insistently at the front of his mind "where did you go?"

Hermione frowned. "Everyone keeps going on about how I 'vanished' and 'disappeared', when I really did no such thing. Just because you lot can't manage to find someone in plain sight doesn't mean that I had some elaborate and secret hiding place."

"So where were you hiding?"

"In Scotland," Hermione said, loftily. "And I wasn't hiding. I was waiting tables."

Blaise stared at her. She stared back. Then his face cracked, and he had to look away to stifle his laughter.

"What?" Hermione asked, annoyed. "What's so funny?"

"You almost had me there, Granger," Blaise said, recovering himself slightly. "Waiting tables? That's a good one!" Then he gave himself over to laughter again.

Hermione raised her eyes to the ceiling and clapped a hand to her forehead.

"But honestly," Blaise asked, grinning. "Where were you? I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Sorry, Zabini," Hermione said dully, pulling herself up and waving at him tiredly "The secret goes with me to my grave."

Hermione stalked away with all the dignity she could manage, trying as hard as she could to ignore the muffled sounds coming from the back of the library.

"Waiting tables in Scotland? Ha!"

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**A/N: yes! I swear I'm not dead! I've just been working through my junior year of high school, which is pretty much regarded to be the worst year. Of high school, of life, of everything. So the fanfic muse totally deserted me, and was replaced by the gnome of AP bio. So here's a new chapter in which not much happens! But I haven't forgotten the story. Sorry for the long, looooooong wait!**


	14. Chapter 14

Lupin had checked the little notebook three times in the past thirty minutes. He hardly needed to, since it was sitting in a place of prominence on Sam's desk and she checked it once every _five_ minutes, but he still kept darting back into her office. The first few times he'd had some sort of pretext for his intrusion, but as time went on and the day went by, his acts grew less and less refined, until he just walked into her office, looked down at the blank book, and walked out again. He'd stopped closing the door behind him too.

It had been nearly a day. Nearly a day since they'd seen or heard from Hannah and Hermione last. Sam wondered, as did everyone in the Order's headquarters that day wondered, if that glimpse of the two women they'd gotten before Blaise Zabini had smashed the mirror would be the last they saw of either of them.

No one spoke of that fear (or premonition), since that was hardly the attitude they were supposed to be approaching this event with. But still. They all had it, just the same.

It was fortunate, then, that there was other work to do. Sam had to draft several carefully worded letters and orders to key operatives in the Ministry and in other parts of the world, and had a long talk with her counterpart in America about how the Muggle economic state in both countries would affect the wizarding world. But no matter how busy she got, there was always time to worry.

Lupin eventually locked himself in his office for a few hours after lunch. Sam was relieved that she was rid of the distraction, but she soon found that his silence was unnerving. He'd been dashing around all day, and when he suddenly stopped… it was some how even harder to work.

"I've got the transcript of Weasley's speech that you wanted, Sam," Hector Wolfgang said as he entered her office and placed a slim folder on her desk. "Hope I didn't take too long."

"No, this is a lot earlier than I thought I'd get it. Thanks."

"You know," Wolfgang said, taking a seat across from Sam's desk and resting his chin on his palm. "I don't think I've ever had to work a day like this before. No, really!" he said insistently when Sam raised an eyebrow at him "Having to work with a crew of people all pretending they aren't worried out of their minds about the same thing and still running the world calmly? While our fearless leader, usually much less frantic, slams doors and darts in and out of rooms? I don't think it's been this hectic since just after the Ministry burned down."

Sam sighed, and leaned back in her chair, smiling crookedly at Wolfgang. "Maybe we're just not used to having days like this. We've been spoiled by the peace, maybe?"

"Ha. Maybe. It has been a long time since I've honestly feared so much for my life. So maybe this is really just us getting back into shape, d'you think?"

"Could be. Where's Longbottom?"

"Out. He had to meet up with a friend." Someone interested in helping the Order, that meant. Longbottom was good with jobs like that. He could tell when a recruit had real potential.

"Lucky dog. Leaving us to deal with Lupin's crazy—"

"My door is open, you know," came an amused voice from Sam's doorway. "And so's yours."

Sam and Wolfgang wheeled around. Lupin was standing there, smiling at the pair of them. The other two gaped.

"The things I miss in my own home having my door closed," Lupin mused, coming in and walking around Sam's desk to peer through the window. "I had no idea."

Sam tried desperately to think of something to say. "Where've you been, Lupin?" She asked finally.

"Taking a nap on my couch," he said calmly.

"Really?" Sam and Wolfgang asked together, incredulous and just a little bit envious.

"Yes," Lupin said, grinning at them. "I was tired out from running around the building and worrying. I feel much better now."

Sam and Wolfgang glowered at him. That was just unfair, to be talking about _naps_ in front of the two of them. Sam had been thinking recently that the bags under her eyes were growing down over her cheeks and taking over her entire face. A _nap?_

"I've also been thinking." Lupin said, his grin fading. "It's been a day." Neither Sam nor Wolfgang had to ask 'since when?' "And even if Hermione didn't think to write something as soon as she could, Hannah would have told her to. Since that hasn't happened, I can only draw two conclusions. That the two of them are in a position where they can't write at all, or that the notebook's transmissions have been destroyed or repressed. We need to find out which if these is true, and we should start by working on the connection between the notebooks. I want to know what you two think before I decide anything."

Wolfgang thought, scratching at the stubble on his cheek as he did so. "Well," he said slowly. "I think that since there's been no contact, we can assume that something is wrong. As you said, Lupin, Hannah knows how to operate, and she'd know to tell us what's going on as soon as she could. And that they wouldn't have anything to report on their first day there is pretty much out of the question."

"But," Sam put in, "We can't call out our people now. We don't know if the two of them are unable to write, or if the notebooks just can't work across such distances."

"We've checked the books over distance," Wolfgang reminded her "And they work together even if they're on opposite sides of the world, or just about."

"Alright," Sam conceded "then maybe it's not distance. Maybe the shields around the fortress cut off any message from the other book. That's possible, isn't it?"

Wolfgang nodded slowly. Lupin narrowed his eyes as he thought, turning again to look out the window.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Lupin said, finally. "Hannah has the notebook on one end. She can work on if from there. Wolfgang, you helped her construct the charm, right?" Wolfgang nodded. "Then you take the book and see if you can't get it to operate again."

"What if they actually are in trouble?" Sam asked, staring at her desktop, her raspy voice hesitant. Wolfgang looked at the faces of the other two, trying to read something in their expressions. Lupin was studying the view from the window, though Sam was positive that there was nothing _that_ fascinating about the neighbor's yard.

"We can't act too rashly," Lupin said. "We have to wait. And—" he faltered "—if something has happened to them… then the Rebels will contact us soon enough."

He left Sam's office then, and went back to his own. Wolfgang picked up the book from Sam's desk, nodded to her, and then left as well. Sam sat alone for a while, then began to read the transcripted speech. Work continued for the Order, and they had much to do. If they convinced themselves that two operatives so far away were just as important as other international doings, they could manage. For a little while, anyway.

* * *

**A/N: part two of the recent update. Neither chapter's too substantial, so I figured I'd post them together. Action's coming, I swear. Really. I totally know what I'm doing here. Yeah. heh heh. Reviews make me dizzy with joy!**


	15. Chapter 15

The way people referred to the fortress varied, and got a little confusing. Many referred to the place as a whole as 'the fortress', while some just used that name for the main building of the… umm… compound. There was more inside the imposing walls than just the one building, after all. Cramped residences, impromptu markets and stalls, and even a sort of ramshackle post office were a part of the camp, but outside of the main castle-like building. The word 'fortress' could mean that main building where all the planning and government took place, or the whole haven in general.

Draco, since he could, just called the main building 'headquarters', partly to reinforce the perception in his workers that they were an organization, not merely a refugee camp, and partly because he knew that was what Lupin called his charming little suburban home, and he couldn't resist the irony.

Draco, being Draco, thought often how _his _headquarters was so much better than Lupin's.

The main building was also the keep, the center, the capitol, and a whole number of other names. Most of the inhabitants of the place just choose whichever they thought most fitting, and hoped everyone else would be able to figure out what they were talking about.

Matthews had tried to organize some sort of official name for their home, but there were too many ideas, and too much conflict. Since division among the Rebels was hardly what he'd intended, the project was dropped, and the settlement went unnamed.

Although the keep was certainly more spacious, and although it did have the largest kitchen in the area, Draco did occasionally need to get out of it. He felt that if he didn't, he'd end up stark raving mad, running around the halls in just his boots and a tie. When he had to explain his excursions, however, he said that it was important to keep in touch with his people. Both reasons were true. One just didn't fit his image as well.

There was one place he frequented more than others. Just a few aisles (paths, alleys—nothing in this fortress was big enough to be a _street_) away from the marketplace, a brother and sister pair from Holland had set up an establishment for those who needed some sort of hot food, but couldn't make it themselves. They'd been behind a radical terrorist group in their homeland, but within these walls, they served the best stew Draco'd ever tasted.

There was some smattering of cheers when he entered, which he acknowledged, but they didn't go on for too long. He was about pretty often, so the novelty of him had worn off for most. And if they made a big fuss, their stew would get cold. That was just a crime.

He headed for his customary table against the wall. He was in a horrible mood, honestly, but he didn't have the luxury of being able to lock himself up in his room and sulk. He had an operation to run, and that meant that those sulking days were long over. He walked about, held meetings, gave speeches, and did his damnedest to act as though nothing earth-shaking had happened in the last few days.

The Order's emissaries had been here almost a week. Draco had been doing an excellent job of avoiding them, foisting them onto Blaise or Matthews when his subordinates had nothing better to do. He had seen the other woman (Hannah? Anna?) wandering around on her own occasionally, and had (not to his credit) always found some nook or side-street to duck into. Hermione Granger, he hadn't seen since the first day she arrived.

He had to commend himself on his cool head. Having gotten used to the _idea_ of her in what he thought of as his home, he thought that he' d be able to get used to the sight of her as well. Maybe he'd even be able to talk to her. But honestly, Draco didn't particularly want to put that theory to the test. It would be embarrassing if he blew up at her in some place where people would see. He was glad that he hadn't seen her. Perhaps this whole thing could be done without his having ever to speak to her again.

Ha. Maybe.

Draco pulled a packet of translucent papers out of his jacket pocket. He found a quill, ink, and his pocket notebook in other pockets, and then set himself to work. The buzz of the restaurant faded in his ears, and he bent over his papers, checking facts and names and then scribbling intently on the packet. The ink seemed to smear almost as soon as he'd written on the paper, so that there was soon a pile of damp-looking blue-soaked papers to his right. He kept working, not even looking up as one of the workers set down a bowl of stew and a plate of bread near his elbow.

Finally, he finished orchestrating the beginning of his conquest of Europe, sat back, and tucked into his lunch. He was positively ravenous.


	16. Chapter 16

What Hermione really wanted to do was sigh in an angry, impatient way. She wanted to be able to voice her annoyance in some likewise annoying way that would at least catch Hannah's attention. But if she'd thought that sound echoed in the stone halls of the fortress during the day, she'd realized that it echoed even more in the deepest, darkest, unfriendly parts of night. It was creepily quiet, and Hermione had to be satisfied with glaring at the other woman's back with as much ferocity as she could manage.

Hannah, of course, was totally oblivious. That was the major problem with silent fuming.

Hermione had been totally unprepared for Hannah's suggestion, and that's why (she thought) she was in this ridiculous position. If she had been better prepared, she would have been able to think of some excuse to turn Hannah down. But since she hadn't been able to form any response in advance, this was how the conversation had happened:

Hannah: Too bad I can't get a decent map of all the nooks and corners of this place while everyone's out and about. It would hardly be diplomatic to be up to something like that.

Hermione: I suppose so.

Hannah smiled.

Hermione: What? _What?_ No, absolutely not.

Hannah: Well, I'm going tonight because we need to. I'd be safer with you to watch my back, but if you want to cower up here all alone, then I can look after myself.

And Hermione hadn't been able to come up with any response, because she had been lulled into a false sense of security by the conversation that had come before this little exchange. It was something banal and about the keep's chef or something, but Hermione could barely remember what it was about now. Just the last part of that conversation kept running around and around in Hermione's mind. She felt like a moron.

They had mapped out their floor, and the two floors beneath it. Their floor had been entirely residential rooms, mostly just single rooms with a bathroom. The fortress was… very odd. It appeared to be your standard old castle, roughly square shaped with the odd tower or spire, but on the inside, it was just wrong. There were hallways at right-angles to each other, and small steps down into floors that jutted off from the main of the building in a way that would definitely have been noticeable from the outside. Hermione had gotten unused to the quirks of magical architecture. It annoyed her.

There was no one else in their wing, but they knew that one old man, two young twin sisters, and a middle-aged man Hannah had seen hanging around the kitchen all lived on the other side of their floor. They'd met most of the floor mates at breakfast, and Hermione had even been invited to lunch with the twins in their room. The floor beneath theirs had been split into residential rooms and what seemed to be lab or conference rooms. Well, there were locked rooms that Hannah guessed were labs, since the doors were either badly charred, buckled, or suspiciously new-looking.

On the floor they were on now, there were more conference rooms and a few offices. They didn't look through the offices or any of the rooms in depth. Hannah just labeled it on her map, and they cleared out as quickly as possible. Frankly, Hermione was amazed that they hadn't run into anyone. In fact, the absence of anyone was somehow more unnerving than it would've been if there had been _someone _lurking around. This was a nest of evil, wasn't it? Where were all the lurkers? The shadows were entirely too empty!

Plus, you'd figure that there'd just be more people working late. This was an organization that was doing its damnedest to know what was going on outside while hiding what was going on inside. That wasn't exactly nine-to-five work. Where _was_ everyone?

While Hermione was reflecting, Hannah was attempting to open the next door. 'Attempting' because the door was stuck. Not locked, by key or magic, because she'd checked. Just stuck, because this fortress was obviously ancient and probably nothing worked at all. She wondered that it hadn't collapsed into a pile of stones a hundred—oh, there, it was opening at last.

Hermione was about to follow her through the door when Hannah suddenly whirled around, smashing into her. Before Hermione could even make a noise of pain or protest, Hannah was pushing her out of the room and down the hallway. Without even realizing it, she was running flat out down the passageway.

Hermione turned to ask Hannah was the hell was going on, but just then she heard the raised voices coming from behind them. Well. _There_ were all the industrious workers. It just figured that they'd all be lurking in the same unlit room. Shady bastards.

"Whoops" Hannah said as they sprinted.

Hermione could hear other steps being tossed around the stone hallway with their. The others apparently wanted to see who'd disrupted their meeting.

"They can't catch us," she panted. "We _definitely_ aren't supposed to be up to something like this."

Hannah nodded, tucking the work-in-progress map into her jumper, keeping her wand in one wand. Hermione noticed that she'd drawn her own as well. She couldn't remember when she'd done that, exactly.

"Split up," Hannah ordered as they neared the end of the passage. "Meet in my room later. Don't worry about taking a long time."

They divided at the neck of the passage, Hermione going left and down the adjacent hallway (they hadn't explored that one yet), Hannah launching herself up a flight of stairs.

The sound of her sneakers clattering against the cold stone seemed freakishly loud to Hermione. Somewhat oddly, she just wanted to turn and curse the living daylights out of her pursuers, but that would hardly have been diplomatic. She wondered that they hadn't fired on her yet, though. But she didn't care enough to stop and ask them why. She kept running, whipping past unfamiliar doors and dark passages.

As she kept running and felt that she had to turn off this hall soon or be hit by some spell, panic began to set in. Almost in perfect time, the muscles in her legs and her lungs began to protest. She hadn't run like this in a long, long time. But where to go? What was a dead end?

Just when she was about to well and truly lose control, she caught sight of a way out. An almost hidden staircase, no wider than an ordinary door, just off to her right. She backtracked and threw herself down it, skipping down steps and hoping to God she didn't fall.

Well, she didn't fall. She did crash fully into the very large and very metal coat rack standing on the steps, knocking her head painfully and sending the rack tumbling down the steps in front of her. This is ridiculous! She moaned as she jumped from the last of the steps and turned onto the next hallway. Why on earth would there even _be _a coat rack in the middle of a tiny staircase stories above any sort of door? The night was beginning to have a strong sense of unreality to it. But she'd have a lump on her head from that little collision, and that didn't really happen in nightmares.

What she needed was a place to hide, and a clever enough place where they wouldn't think to stop and look for her. _You're good at stuff like this, Hermione_, she thought in a voice that sounded (though she _really_ didn't want to examine the psychological meaning of _this_) like Harry's. _Just wait for the flash of brilliance to come to you like it usually does. _

It's the usually that she had a real problem with. And that wasn't a plan, that was some sort of a—there!

Hermione backpedaled, staring at another staircase. This one was grander and obviously newer, crafted of wood that was still a fresh yellow. It came up from the floor below and continued upstairs, with just a small landing connecting it to the hallway Hermione had been running down.

It was an insane idea. The gap between the beginning of one flight and end of the other was probably less than four feet wide. She'd fall to her death. She'd be caught. She had no alternative at the moment. That was all there was to it. And they'd never expect her to be this stupid.

She jogged over to the edge of the landing, jammed her wand into her back pocket, and hiked herself over the banister. Using the steps of the stairs coming up on her right, she carefully got a firm grip on the wooden slats of the banister above her. She tried to lower herself slowly so her arms wouldn't lock, finally letting her body dangle in the air below the staircase. Just as she finished her painstaking process, she heard steps in the hallway she'd just left. _Careful, now. Don't panic. _Only her fingers were visible from the hallway, just wrapped around the slats of the banister at the edge of the landing. Hopefully no one would think to examine the floor.

There were steps on the wooden landing now. They shuffled around, then stopped. Hermione bowed her head, wishing with more passion than she ever had before that her hair was a little less noticeable.

"I can't hear anything. Which way now?" someone asked. Whoever it was, they were sorely out of breath. Hermione smiled.

"Down again?" another man panted.

"They did that last time," said a woman's voice. "Would they choose the same direction twice?"

"If they were that thoughtful, would they have broken into that room so clumsily?" a younger voice reasoned.

"This would've been over much faster if we could've just cursed them," someone moaned.

"We _told_ you, that's against the—"

"Stokes? Kuran? Is that you? What are you all doing?" This voice was new, unwinded, and coming from the steps alarmingly close to Hermione's right side. They were on the steps coming up. Had they seen her levering herself over the edge? And, the worst worry of all, wasn't that voice a little familiar?

"Sir1" One of her pursuers panted, and Hermione's heart sank. "Have you seen someone running down these steps, sir?"

"Sorry?" The new voice asked, clearly thinking they were playing some sort of joke on him.

"Up the stairs, then!" Someone called, and they were off, feet clattering up the stairs and vanishing out of hearing. Hermione didn't allow herself to relax or even shift her grip on the banister. She hadn't heard that other set of feet move yet. She grimaced, and tried to stay still. Her arms _really _hurt.

Draco pivoted to watch the others race up the steps, slightly bemused. What had all _that_ been about? He had been wrapped up in his own thoughts, but had he been so distracted as to miss the sounds of someone running through his keep? No one had passed him (_that_ he would have definitely noticed), but if they'd run up the stairs…

He sighed, stepping thoughtfully onto the landing. He thought that all conflict between members of the Rebels had been extinguished once he's united them under one name, but he knew that old allegiances die hard. Death Eaters weren't the only ones in the keep, after all, and old enemies sometimes found themselves face to face in this supposed haven. He'd put in rules to keep that sort of infighting in check, because he frankly didn't have the patience to deal with it, but fresh people came in every week. He couldn't personally address every prejudice and family issues in his keep, and he sure as hell didn't want to.

Maybe he'd just been working them too hard. He'd ask Stokes about it tomorrow, being entirely too tired to chase them around the keep now. He'd spent too many nights working lately, and coffee could only get a person so far before they started acting…_funny_. Draco recalled with perfect clarity the way Blaise had gone a few months ago. During a busy and critical time in their plans, he'd stopped combing his hair or showering, and he went missing for a whole day before Draco found him crouched under his desk, talking rapidly and incomprehensibly to his quill pen. He'd recovered after two days of uninterrupted sleep, but Draco'd rather rest before he went into such an undignified—_What was that?_

He froze, and the silence that had before seemed restive and peaceful now was oppressive. Eyes darting around the steps and landing, he felt the blood drain from his face as he remembered Stokes' question. What if the person hadn't gone up _or_ down the stairs? What if they were still right here? Slowly and carefully, Draco pulled his wand from his pants pocket and gripped it in his right hand. Calm down. Maybe he'd made a mistake. He _was_ tired after all, and paranoia was a symptom of too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Just wait a little longer. Just in case.

There! There it was again! A sort of muffled groan, coming from somewhere very close. Shaking more from adrenaline than fear, Draco turned to survey the landing. He had to move cautiously until he was sure where the intruder was hiding. He didn't even light his wand, in case he hadn't already given away his position. Bending slowly, Draco untied his boots and slipped out of them. Padding inaudibly across the wood in his thick socks, he crept over to the edge of the landing, peering over it into the darkness below.

And stared.

"I don't believe it."

"Shit," Hermione's muttered into the darkness beneath the stairs. When had he moved?

"Granger, what the bloody fucking hell are you doing handing off that landing?"

"Dying." She said grimly, still not looking up at him. "Very, _very_ slowly."

"I should just leave you there," he said, with a great deal more vehemence than he'd meant. Damn. He'd promised himself that the next time he'd be the cool, in control one. There was no Blaise to bruise his tailbone here. He had to stay calm. She finally looked up then, though he could barely make out her features in the dark. She didn't reply. She just twisted her body and swung one leg up onto the steps to her right. Pulling herself onto that knee, she unwrapped one hand from the base of the banister and put it along the top slat. Draco watched as she went through this excruciating process, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest. Finally she got herself up, and was pulling herself over the top of the banister.

She righted herself, and stared up at him, her arms hanging at her sides.

She was breathing heavily, and shaking, but she hoped that he couldn't see her that clearly in the dark. She couldn't she much of what he was doing, but could make out the shape of his face and body. She couldn't make out any detail, but it was him. Beyond a doubt. She had to make a conscious effort to keep breathing evenly, and to think straight. She wasn't afraid, she realized. Her arms just hurt really horribly. After hanging in space over a three-story drop, squaring off against one man seemed like nothing,.

But that one man was still Malfoy. She wished she could just get away from him. But she'd thought it over after that emotionally charged first meeting, and had reached the conclusion that she'd spent entirely too much time running away from him. Something like six years. More than that, if you wanted to analyze their relationship at school (though she most definitely didn't).

"So, what now?" She asked, when the silence was getting ridiculous.

"Sorry?" Draco asked, his voice strained. It sounded as though he just wanted to run away too. At least he had a concrete reason for not wanting to turn his back on her. It wasn't something she was proud of.

"What happens now?" She repeated. "If you want to have some sort of 'clash of the titans', battle-to-end-all-battles, I have to tell you that I'm _really_ not in the mood for it." She'd meant to sound light and easy, but her stupid voice came out all quavery. Shit.

He was silent, then took an odd sort of deep shuddering breath. Oh God, she thought suddenly, If he has some sort of asthma attack here, I'll have no idea what to do. She actually had to stop herself from giggling at the thought. She was really cracked. Utterly and totally cracked.

"What the hell were you doing down there?" Well, at least his voice quavered too.

"Nothing," she said. If she pretended that she was talking to someone else, she could probably get through this conversation without losing her composure. "I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd take a look around. I opened a door, and interrupted them—" she gestured above them to indicate Stokes, Kuran, and crew. "—and panicked. They chased me, so I just kept running. Hanging there was the only hiding place I could think of."

There was another silence, and she realized that her silly idea of pretending it wasn't him she was talking to would never work. She just wished that he wasn't standing above her on the landing. She'd have felt more secure if she could at least have had the advantage of higher ground.

"Where were you?" He asked hurriedly, the words running together in his mouth. As soon as he asked, he wished he hadn't. But now that he had…

"Scotland!" She said, losing her temper a little. "What is so hard to understand about that? I wasn't _hiding _there; I wasn't holed up in some pit or anything! I was just living in a rented house, waiting tables, and reading! How does that make me so incredibly hard to find? _You're_ the one with an intelligence network! Just because it's a crap one doesn't mean—"

"Oh, Christ, Granger, that isn't what I was talking about!" He blurted out, taking a few angry steps closer to her. She stopped talking and pressed her arms against her sides for support. She would _not_ back away from him.

"Then what _are_ you talking about?" She asked through clenched teeth.

"Oh, please" his voice sneered (he still did _that_ the same way he had when he was eleven). "I'm giving you the chance to explain yourself to me after all this time. Show a _little _common courtesy. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."

She didn't respond immediately. She crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring his own position. She was beginning to see what he was talking about now. She wished she didn't. She _really _wished she didn't.

"Do you really want to talk about this now?" she asked quietly, keeping the old pain almost entirely out of her voice. "Do you really want to go into all of this here?"

"Obviously!" he spat, her question only incensing him more. "I've had to wonder about it for some time, and now I'd like an answer. I don't suppose you realize how hard it was to even _ask_ you to come, and then how it was when you—" he stopped. He could still remember it. It had been so dark, and it had been then that he'd realized how alone… how utterly alone… "I suppose you must have some regret now, at any rate." He laughed humorlessly, recovering himself. "I mean, just _think_ what you'd have been able to tell the papers! 'My chat with the boy who let them in'. What a headline! But you seem to have gotten your fifteen seconds of fame without my help, so maybe you aren't remorseful after all."

"You bastard." She said coldly. "You absolute bastard. You should know why I wasn't there."

"Excuse me?" he asked, his high-and-mighty, declamatory tone faltering a little. "How should I know? We haven't spoken since, remem—"

"Because I found out what you were planning to do, you scum!" It came out a good deal louder than the rest of their conversation had, and it seemed even louder as it echoed around them and burst against Draco's ears.

"W-What?" It was just a ragged whisper through the air. She wouldn't have heard it at all if the staircase hadn't been so empty.

"I was going to see you earlier that day. I was going to return that _stupid _cloak. And I heard Crabbe and Goyle—I heard them—heard what _you_ were planning to do! At the moment you wanted to meet, I was looking for help! But you'd already taken care of all of them, hadn't you? You know the rest."

"Yeah!" Draco shot out, recovering with an enormous effort. "Yeah, I do! And I've still got the scar to prove it!"

"Well, at least I did _something_ right back then." she said acidly.

She was expecting him to attack. She dropped her arms so she could have easier access to her wand in her back pocket, but he didn't move. She could hear him breathing (they weren't very far apart, and it was very quiet now that they'd stopped shouting), but other than that it was as though he'd been turned into a lump of stone.

Finally, just when she thought they were going to be trapped in some sort of sick thrall on the steps all night, he took a jerky step back, and then another, then turned away from her and stalked into the hallway without looking back.

Hermione watched him go, then whirled away as well, her jaw set. She started heading down the steps, but stumbled, catching herself on the stone wall. She sank down to perch on the step beneath her, just thinking she'd wait there until she got her breath back. She'd just taken a deep breath to get some air into her lungs, but when she exhaled it somehow tugged itself out into a sob, and then before she could stop herself she was hysterically crying, pressing her face into her hands to muffle the noise. All the same old fear, the same horror, the same dread and hurt and horrible feeling of _betrayal _that she'd felt that night pounded through the carefully built barriers that she'd made to hold them back through the years and sucked her down. She could _feel_ herself crouching in that corner as she had back then, as she'd listened to Crabbe and Goyle mutter to each other, could feel that disbelief crash around her as she'd heard that Draco meant to kill her. That dread as she'd raced to McGonagall's office, not even suspecting what she'd find there. All those accusations, carefully suppressed as time went on, surged against her mercilessly. You should've acted sooner. You could have picked up the hints. There had been so many that you just didn't want to see. You did it. You could have stopped him if you hadn't been afraid to face him after everything that had happened. It was you, not him. You did it. Your fault. And then a new one, fresh and terrible—_If you had just been braver, you wouldn't have to be sitting in this frozen Hell, beaten already by that same fear. _

Draco got all the way to his room. He only stumbled once he got inside, catching himself in his desk chair before he fell to the ground. Grinding his teeth and rubbing fiercely at his eyes with both hands, he found that those old memories were harder to force back than they had been. They kept wanting to rise up around him. The uncertainty and half-formed hope he'd felt, waiting all alone. The fear then, that she'd found him out. And then the terror that he'd felt when he'd realized that he would have to go through with it. Old, outdated, stupid feelings. He was ashamed of them now. He couldn't regret his actions during those critical days as he set things into motion. That regret belonged to some other time, some other place, some other Draco… He looked down then, suddenly noticing that he'd left his boots behind. He'd walked all the way to his room in his socks. How… how _stupid. _Just before he rolled over to drown out this horrendous night with sleep (to hell with the stupid boots, he didn't much like them anyway), one thought floated across his mind before he fell asleep. _I never told Crabbe and Goyle what I was planning to do that night. _

Hermione got up, eventually, because she'd remembered where she was, and really didn't want anyone to find her there in a state. Feeling spent and numb, she changed course and headed up the stairs, hoping she'd find her room before she collapsed. As it happened, this change of course was very lucky. If she'd kept going down, she would've discovered a very bewildered Hannah Abbot crouched just around a turn in the stair.

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**AN: Hee hee. Told you there'd be action. Lemme know what you think.**


	17. Chapter 17

Her name was Maureen Kraft. She had been working in Rome, making covert arrangements for even more covert agreements between the Minister of Magic there and the Order of the Pheonix. She had vanished just a day ago, failing to check in with her contact at the Order, missing an important meeting with the Minister's Secretary, and standing up an innocent and frustrated young Roman.

His name was Eugene Fergusen. He had been doing research in Dublin, research in advanced magical barriers. He had also vanished a day ago, similarly failing to check in. His coworkers had reported him absent as well, and Lupin hadn't issued any orders for him to be elsewhere.

There were other names, exactly eighteen others. They were stationed all over Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, all on different missions and from different areas. There was no age connection between them, no gender difference. The only connections that tied together all the missing witches and wizards were that they all worked for the Order, and that they'd all vanished exactly one ago.

What marked Maureen and Eugene apart was that they had both been found. Dead. Maureen in a park outside near the house of another Order agent, and Eugene on the steps of his favorite pub. The bodies… they hadn't been tortured, and the bodies hadn't been mutilated. But they were still dead.

Lupin stared down at the reports on them and the other eighteen, his fists resting on the top of his desk. Twenty members. Such a precise number. And they'd all vanished at the same time. Twenty. With a number like that… someone was sending him a message. Whoever was behind it (and there was a someone—this wasn't random) wanted him to know that they had control. That they knew where his operatives were, and that they had _their _operative everywhere.

Sam and Neville Longbottom sat before him, Sam intent and tapping the arm of her chair with her fingernails, Neville looking tired and travel worn. They were waiting for him to move, but he found that he couldn't speak just then.

"Sam," he said finally. "I want you to send a slimmed-down copy of these names and files to Ginny. She should know what's going on. This one—" he indicated the report on a missing girl stationed in London. "—was her junior assistant. So she should know about how wide-spread this is."

He paused, putting a hand over his eyes and stretching his back. The ramifications of this…

"Kraft and Ferguson may be exceptions, but we can't afford to assume that the others are alive. Neville, contact whoever would have been working with one of these people. Tell them to get out, if what they're working on isn't crucial. We can shuffle people around to take over their jobs. And I want you to mobilize some forces to investigate what these people were doing before they disappeared. Who they spoke to that wasn't an Order member, who they spoke to that _was _and Order member. Where they went. What they did before they vanished. You don't need me to tell you this," he finished, lowering his hand and sinking into a chair. "So just do it, please."

Neville nodded curtly, smiled weakly, and left the office.

Sam waited to be dismissed. Instead of doing so, Lupin gently gathered up the different reports and shuffled them into order, moving slowly and thinking hard. Sam waited, watching him. She hadn't seen Lupin this agitated in… in a long time. She'd known this was bad as soon as the reports arrived, but seeing Lupin's reaction… She just felt sorry for Neville. He hadn't even been able to prepare himself for this.

"Sam," Lupin said finally, setting down the reports and fixing his eyes on her face. "I can't think this is a coincidence."

Sam nodded slowly. "The timing's too close."

Lupin sighed, and sat back in his chair, raising his eyes to stare at the ceiling. "We send two of our own, and within three weeks members start disappearing."

Sam shifted in her chair, not really sure what to say to that.

"How's Wolfgang getting on with the notebooks?" Lupin asked. "We need those up and running even more than we did before."

"No headway. He says he might be getting somewhere, though. A sort of... _stain's_ turned up on one of the pages."

Lupin blinked. "A brownish stain, appearing about two days ago?"

"Yes," Sam said, startled. "How'd you know?"

"That was me," Lupin said hollowly. "I spilled some coffee on it by accident when I was eating breakfast." Sam bit her lip, and rose to leave the office without another word. He waited until the door was firmly closed behind her, and then waited for a few minutes more until he was sure that everyone else had returned to their desks. Then he kicked his desk. Hard.

It wasn't nearly satisfying enough.

What the hell was going on?

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**A/N: So late! Please Forgive meeee! I had a little trouble getting back into this after reading the last book. It was just _so good!_ I really loved it (except for the epilogue, but that's a given), and so my muse could see the storm coming and fled. She skulked back a few days ago, just in time for the start of school. Go figure. Let me know what you think! I love responses of all kinds!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: Nope, none of HP is mine. **

**just to put you in context, this chapter takes place just after the (latest) big screaming fight between Draco and Hermione. Go back and re-read it if you're confused. Hey, go back and read it anway, cuz I am damn proud of that fight. **

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Hannah heard Hermione's steps vanish down the hall, and she waited. For good measure, she waited for another few seconds.

_Then_ she let out her breath.

Well.

Then, when she'd recovered from what she'd just heard, she realized just how stiff her legs were.

"Oh, Christ," she muttered, straightening up slowly, and groaning as her thighs tried to figure out how they were supposed to work. The sound of her voice echoed in the staircase, but she wasn't too worried. After the way Hermione and Malfoy had been snarling at each other, anyone who'd be drawn to investigate one little mutter had probably fled from the scene of the big bloody row.

It was funny. She'd spent so much time wondering what had happened. Speculating, formulating… and now that she actually had a more concrete _idea_…

All she felt was sick.

She certainly wasn't ready to go back to bed. What if she ran into someone while rambling around the fortress? Well, running into Hermione in their wing seemed like a much more horrible prospect. Hannah wasn't a field agent, not really. She could usually keep what she knew off her face, but not minutes after she'd heard it. And not when the exchange had been so… uh… heated.

Now she _really_ felt sick. Time to start moving, before she threw up.

Hannah turned, and started down the stairs, retracing her steps. After splitting up with Hermione, she'd led her pursuers on a mad dash down as many staircases as she could find. Once she'd recovered from her panic enough to realize that this probably wasn't a strategy to depend on, since she'd eventually run out of stairs, she'd ducked behind a half-open door after whipping around a corner, and waiting for them to pass her.

What _actually_ happened was that she unwittingly discovered one of the castle's charming and surprising shortcuts. The room she'd dashed into didn't have a floor. She hadn't screamed, because one minute she was opening the door and the next she was _falling_, so there wasn't any _time_, but that was really the only bright side.

Apparently, someone had fallen down this hole before, because there were mattresses at the bottom of the hole. The only problem was that the mattresses were ancient. Hannah ached all over. Still, she wasn't broken in anyplace serious. Her wrist could use some further treatment, but she didn't anticipate having to lift any weights in the meantime.

She'd hobbled out of the pit, and found herself a floor above where she'd been when she'd fallen. She remembered taking a course on Nordic Wizards in school. Now she remembered that they were mostly tricky bastards with foul senses of humor. As was evidenced in their architecture. She'd made her way up the first set of stairs she came too, and discovered a row, mid-snarl. It didn't take a genius to figure out who were the ones snarling.

"Great timing," Hannah sighed, trying to work the aches out of her shoulders with her fingers as she walked. "I almost want to just shut them up in a room together so they can just get all that energy out of the way." Hermione could pick better circumstances to rehash old—

"I'd imagine that'd be explosive."

Hannah whirled without thinking, her wand flying up to point at Blaise Zabini's face.

They stared at each other.

Finally, Hannah sighed and lowered her wand, though she kept her eyes on Zabini carefully. He hadn't raised his own wand, after all. He had his hands in his pockets, as a matter of fact. But still. "You know, you're going to have an accident if you keep doing that showing-up-from-nowhere trick. Don't people around here get edgy about it?"

"I save it up for special occasions." Blaise said blankly, raising an eyebrow at her.

"You look a little less frazzled," Hannah observed, "You've maybe stopped with the coffee?"

"Doubled the caffeine concentration. Why else do you think I'd be walking around at this hour?"

They paused, appraising each other. Then they each gave the other tiny, almost identical smiles. Blaise started walking down the hall, and Hannah fell in step beside him.

"So why are _you_ up and about? You haven't _started_ with the coffee, have you?"

"No, no, I try not to get enslaved to breakfast drinks. I just had a bad dream. Wanted to walk it off." The lie came easily to her. She'd used it a lot to explain sneaking around. Well, she had a lot of bad dreams, so it wasn't _strictly_ a lie. She just hadn't happened to have had a bad dream that night. Lies are all about context, after all.

"Ah," Blaise said, sounding a little wistful under his usual deadpan tone. "I wish I could remember what it was like to dream." Then he mumbled something under his breath that sounded like "Damn brewer never works right."

Hannah smiled a little.

"So I suppose you heard that fight, then." She said lightly.

"Oh, yes." He said, just as easily.

"Something else, hmm?"

"Hmm. I don't suppose you know any more about it?"

"What?" Hannah asked, abandoning her carefree approach to this and staring at Blaise. "You mean you don't know anything either?"

"No! I _work_ for him, I'm not his _confidante_." Blaise looked faintly disgusted at the very idea.

"You're friends, though."

"Well, yes. I suppose. But there are things you don't talk about. Even with friends."

Hannah had to give him that one.

There was a short pause after this. What do you say, Hannah wondered, to someone in a situation like this? Blaise broke the silence again.

"So what are you two trying to achieve here, anyway?" His tone was very casual. He was very good, Hannah noted. Secretary? Yeah, that was likely.

"Has it even occurred to you that our intentions are completely aboveboard? _You're _the ones who invited us here without explanation."

"We explained clearly in the letter—"

"Oh yes, and that was _so _convincing, we _instantly_ were sure of your sincerity. But it should be fairly obvious what we're doing here. It's what you all want with us that's a little more suspicious."

Blaise pondered this for a little while. "You know," He said "I think we've all spent so much time dealing with secrets and covert societies that we can't handle things any other way. Not just us. Back in London, your government isn't quite out in the open either. We're none of us able to work like that any more. Look, are you hungry? I'm starving, and I need something to absorb the caffeine."

Hannah shrugged. She was probably as safe with him as she was in any other part of the castle. Which was not safe at all. At least it was a consistant sort of danger.

Blaise continued. "But to return to my original point. Sending _Hermione Granger?_ Tell me there wasn't some sort of plan behind that."

Hannah sighed. "Well, if there was, I don't know about it. She doesn't know about it. It would be quite brilliant, though. The look on his face…" she laughed a little, before realizing that this probably wasn't the most sensitive reaction.

Blaise scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully. "If there was one wrench that could undo Draco Malfoy, it would probably be her. If your people knew that, then I'd say there's nothing that could stand in your way."

"And if they didn't?"

"Then I'd say they're _unbelievably_ lucky."

Hannah let it go. She kept walking, and Blaise lapsed into silence. They kept walking down the kitchens, where they had an excellent meal (apparently the keep's cook didn't sleep either), then parted for bed. Well, Hannah for bed. Blaise to wander the halls a little while longer, until the caffeine wore off.

Hannah'd been thinking the whole time. About the Rebels, about Hermione and Draco, about the Order, and about the Epic Struggle. But even with an excellent meal to fuel her and her muscles mostly uncramped, she hadn't gotten anywhere. All her thoughts circled back in on each other, refusing to connect or form any sort of pattern. Tired and frustrated, she went back to her room with a headache.

It was one of her last nights in the fortress of the King's Rebels, but she was too tired to really enjoy it. Even if she had known what was coming, she was so sick of it all that she would've gone straight to bed anyway.

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**A/N: I'm really sorry to be so MIA for so long. But in case you didn't know, I'm in my senior year in high school, which is a _lot_ more stressful than movies and tv make it out to be. But now that the hellish first semester is over, I hope to be updating a lot more frequently! Sorry for the loong hiatus. **

**Not much happens in this chapter. But I've got two more for you which have much more action in them! It's my present to you for being gone so long. Heh. **


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: None of it is mine. None. Don't rub it in.

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To Our friends at the Order:**

**Twenty of your number have been taken from you. We hope you noticed, and we hope you see that we are serious. **

**The twenty were just a prologue. The sole point of this message is to assure you that we are indeed the ones behind your losses, and to drive home our sincerity. **

**We also would like to remind you that you have given us the gift of two hostages. Hannah Abbot and Hermione Granger will remain whole and unharmed as long as the Order behaves itself. The moment you make a move against us, all promises are over. **

**We have spent six years denied a place in the world we had a right to. Now we make a place for ourselves. We hope you understand our situation, and yours. **

**Most sincerely, **

**The King's Rebels. **

Sam had never seen Lupin so angry.

He was in his room now, lying still on his couch staring up at the ceiling. He'd left the door to his office open, which was almost as worrying as the staring into space. But just five minutes before… It was a good thing that it was so late. Not all their members would be able to focus after seeing their leader like that. And by 'focus' she meant 'ever come back to the Order, ever'. Sam was shaken, and she was usually unshakeable.

The clock chimed 1:30, the sound echoing in the house. As she never had before, Sam felt the smallness of it. Such a tiny building, and it seemed surrounded on all sides by a rising tide of danger and darkness. A tide they hadn't even seen coming in. Shit.

"Sam." His voice was so quiet, she would never have heard it if she wasn't lurking outside his door. She stuck her head around the doorframe cautiously. Calm and blank were almost as terrifying as raging and shouting.

"Yes?"

"It's…" He stopped, closing his eyes for a moment and collecting himself. "It's 1:30, and it's Saturday. I'd like you to give me the report on Harry Potter, if you don't mind."

She stared at him. Then, understanding, she went to her office quickly and picked up the (wholly forgotten, in all the hubbub) report from Kingsley Shacklebolt. Returning to Lupin's office, she settled herself in the chair behind his desk, so she could sit near him as she read.

"Well… Kingsley says they've canvassed most of the Northeast coast, and will be moving south once they're done looking in New York. There's some evidence of his being there briefly a few years ago—near urban legend, now. Something about fighting an alligator under—underground. But Kinglsey s-says that they should look into every—every clue. It's m-more than they've had so far. S-still, he's not very ho-hopeful." She broke off. There was more, but she couldn't read any further.

She looked up at Lupin. Sometime during her reading of the report, Lupin had stopped staring at the ceiling and started watching her. Ashamed, Sam took a ragged breath and wiped at her face. Uncharacteristic weakness, this.

But Lupin's face had lost its paralyzed look, and his eyes seemed more alive. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and turned to face her.

"Thank you, Sam. I know that wasn't easy, but thank you."

"I didn't do anything." She said, sounding angry, though he knew better than to think that she was. "I don't know what good that did, except to make me even _more_ upset at—"

"It did me good," Lupin cut in gently. "Just to be reminded of why I'm doing this."

Sam nodded. Lupin got to his feet and pulled her up from her chair, holding her hands in his.

"Sam," He said, firmness and resolve in his voice. "This won't be allowed. I will protect Hermione and Hannah all that I can, but I can't chose them over what we've fought so hard to rebuild." She looked him squarely in the face, understanding. It was the worst choice any leader could be faced with.

"It's what we have to do." She said, squeezing his hands in reassurance. "There isn't another choice. They're strong, and they're smart. We knew that this could happen when we chose them. They can look after themselves."

Lupin bowed his head. Sam couldn't pretend that this show of weakness wasn't uncomfortable for her, but she knew that he needed all the moments of human frailty he could get. Soon it would be time to act, and then he could no longer show anything but resolve.

"If that's what you've decided, we need to move fast. Have you already got a plan? I can send word to the right people within minutes. All I need is just to—Ooph!"

He'd cut her off, wrapping his arms around her in a hug. She stiffened in surprise, then carefully put her arms around him. Her mother had always said, when they'd first arrived at her stepfather's home in London, that the most frustrating thing about the British was how contained they all were. Sam hadn't really understood, and hadn't really cared to ask her mother more. But having worked in the Order, she thought she got what her mother was saying. They were all so busy saving the world, they couldn't spare the time for basic human contact. Lupin especially was so busy being the head of this organization, that Sam thought he didn't let himself be a regular person. A hug once in a while is very healthy.

"I know it's naïve," he said calmly into her shoulder. "But I really thought we were done with all this. I really thought we'd moved on to a better world."

Sam just held him. Eventually, he was able to straighten up on his own. He smiled gently at her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry for frightening you, Sam."

"We all have our moments." She said, smiling back at him. "And this is one hell of a moment to have to deal with."

Lupin nodded. "Send word out. I want to move soon, when it'll still unbalance them. And don't tell anyone about this, Sam. I want them to think that we're going to cooperate."

"Does 'anyone' include people here?"

"Especially people here." Lupin said. "I think you can guess why."

Sam nodded firmly, her face stormy, before withdrawing to her office to send out the right messages.

Lupin left his office as well, going into the portrait room. Reminder and memorial. The mural tonight was of Dumbledore's death. He tried to read into the symbolism of that, but couldn't bend his brain to it. He looked up at all the pictures, the green sheen of the frozen faces reflecting the light from the room's only lamp. He stayed there for the rest of the sleepless night. Reminder and memorial.

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**A/N: I think Sam may be my favorite of all the OCs I've made for this story. Things are heating up, yes? Well, they're on their way there. Please review and tell me what you think!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: HP isn't mine. Heh. I wish. **

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Hermione fell out of bed, and thought that the world was ending.

She could hear rumbles in the distance, and the floor itself was shaking. People were screaming, and shouting, and there was an all too-familiar light coming in through her window, although it was the middle of the night.

Fire. The fortress was on fire.

She was awake and on her feet, and didn't stop to look out the window. She wrenched her door open, to find Hannah poised to pull open the door. After a half-second of surprise, Hannah came in quickly, and shut the door behind her.

"Whatever's going on," Hannah said, without preamble "We need to get out of here as soon as possible."

Hermione nodded, turning to pull on jeans and find her jacket. Hannah left the room again, presumably to pack up a little too. Hermione shoved more clothes and the puppy notebook into her smallest bag, and was ready.

Then, while she waited for Hannah, she went to the window.

The fortress _was_ burning. Some army was at the gates, and she could see flickers of magical warfare from her window. What was going on?

Hannah came back in, dressed for warmth. "I don't know how we're supposed to get out of here without being seen." She said. Her voice was calm. Her eyes darted around the room, but the rest of her was still and ready for action. Hermione knew then, if she hadn't before, that Hannah was very, _very_ good at what she did.

"There're secret passages in here." Hermione said. "One behind the headboard, and the other through the closet. I don't know where they go."

"Open up the headboard one."

Hermione did, pushing back the headboard and scraping her wand against the stones there. They slid away and down, and there was a fairly large hole where there had once been wall. Hermione looked back at Hannah, who nodded. Hermione lit her wand, and went in. The light didn't do much to dispel the darkness of the passage. Hermione was comforted to notice that it was _extremely_ dusty and dirty—if it had been a clean, well-used passage, then the chances of their escaping undetected would be a lot slimmer. But if no one knew this place existed… it was possible. Hermione kept going, the thought keeping the dark from pressing in around her. It was possible.

She'd never had a problem with small, dark spaces. She liked them, actually, drawing a sort of security from being surrounded and tucked in. When she'd started sleeping in closets after the Battle, it wasn't totally without precedent. Darkness and closeness never scared her.

Darkness and closeness in an evil fortress that was _on fire, _now that made her a little nervous.

The passage led down at a gradual angle, and no other passages led off or to it. They went single-file, since it was a pretty narrow passage, and didn't speak. There was the possibility of their being overheard, and then there was just the fact that there was nothing to say. What _do_ you say, when you're fleeing a situation like that?

So they went on in silence, Hermione trying to block the (barely discernable, but still audible) sounds of the battle, Hannah's mind flicking from thought to thought. The only sounds were the sounds of their steps, and the sounds filtering in from around them.

Up on the wall of the fortress, in the middle of all the sounds and light and fury, Draco Malfoy was livid. It was a little hard to tell how angry he was, if one didn't know him. If one didn't know him, one would think that he was just _focused. _

Well, Blaise and Victor knew him well enough to stay well back. When his jaw took that certain set and his eyes took on that _look__…_wise subordinates dove for cover. Wise subordinates probably didn't stand on top of walls in the middle of pitched magical battles, though, so maybe Blaise and Victor didn't qualify. But they stayed well out of Draco's reach, anyway.

Draco'd just lapsed into a fuming silence after issuing orders to his military lieutenants. He kept transferring his weight from one leg to the other, rocking slowly back and forth as he stared over the wall. Blaise and Victor stayed _far_ back. And they didn't speak either. It seemed like their leader was fighting against some primal and barbaric impulse to leap over the wall and into the fray, and they didn't want to interrupt him while he was fighting that. Instead, they shot grim looks at each other, and shielded him from all but the most important questions (it was just better to keep the people asking 'are we going to die?' away from him, just then. For their sakes).

"Why?" Draco spat out, slowly grinding a fist against the top of the wall. "Why are they doing this now?" He kept grinding his fist into the stone, eyes flicking from one flare-up to another. "We told them. We told them we had hostages, and what we wanted. What the hell is Lupin _doing_?"

Blaise kept his opinions to himself. It would be suicidal to voice any of those opinions just at that moment. Honestly, he couldn't help but admire Lupin a bit for this move. The one move that _no one_ expected him to make. No one expected him to cave, but at most they thought another ambassador would be sent, or negotiations would be set up. A direct attack had been totally unexpected. When Blaise had been woken up (from his first unbroken night of sleep in _ages_) he hadn't believed that they were being attacked. Not until he'd gone to his window and looked out at the commotion did he believe it. Even standing at the top of the battlements, looking and smelling and hearing undeniable evidence, he didn't quite believe it. Lupin had thrown them all for a loop. Blaise had to admire him for that.

A messenger from the field came up to Draco, and Victor let him pass. Blaise watched Draco listen to the man (a wizard from the south of Italy—not a Death Eater or from a Death Eater family) without hearing what they said. He felt detached, somehow. Well, alright, he usually felt detached, but this was a different kind of detachment. He wasn't quite focused on anything, though he knew that he could very well die tonight. It wasn't impossible. But then, he'd survived nearly seven years at Hogwarts, so imminent death was something he was almost used—something Draco'd mentioned was bothering him. Hostages. Hermione and Hannah. Had anyone seen them?

Blaise turned to Victor, keeping his voice down. "Did you send any guards up to our hostages' rooms?"

Victor looked at him for a moment, trying to bring his mind from the working of the battle to what Blaise was saying. Then his eyes went wide.

"Oh…" the Frenchman said. "Shit."

Well, that about summed it up, Blaise thought. Shit. They could be anywhere in the fortress by now. Lupin hadn't sent hostages who'd stay put in their rooms until someone showed up to tell them what was happening. Oh no. That would be making things entirely too easy for them, wouldn't it?

"What did you just say?"

_Shit_. Blaise turned a blank face to Draco, who'd unfortunately finished with the messenger just in time to hear Blaise's question to Victor. Blaise adopted his favorite position of defense—haughty ignorance. Which wasn't so effective when he was surrounded by explosions and therefore just a bit nervous.

"What?"

Draco wasn't fooled. "God _dammit_." He spat, slamming a fist on the wall. Victor winced. "Send someone to _find _them. We can't lose them now, when they're the only—"

He was cut off by a colossal boom, and the three men were thrown off their feet as a ripple shook through the fortress' walls. Dust blossomed up from somewhere, so they could barely see.

Victor, the first to orient himself, scrambled over to the edge of the wall and peered over it. He turned back to the others, the dust making him look at least twenty years older.

"They've breached the wall," he said. He looked like he was shouting, but in the great grinding chaos that echoed around them, his voice sounded like a whisper.

Draco pulled himself up, moving next to Victor. Blaise stayed down and back, thinking.

"Draco, you need to get out of here." He said finally, cutting Draco off in the middle of a truly impressive string of expletives.

Draco spun to face him. The effect was a little ruined by the fact that he was on his knees, and covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. He would be almost comical if it wasn't for the frenzied gleam in those eyes.

"_What?"_ he yelled (more out of necessity than rage). "_Leave? _How could you even _suggest_ something like that? They need me out here!"

"No," Blaise yelled, shuffling over to put his face within inches of Draco's, shouting to be heard. "They need you _alive_. If you get away now, we can recover. How can we recover if you're dead?"

Draco looked at him, face slack with fury. "_I won't leave."_ He hissed, Blaise close enough to hear every word. "I won't leave them."

Blaise looked at him, annoyed. "Now isn't the time for great last stands!" he yelled (louder than he needed to, actually, since Draco's ear was inches away) "You need to think like a leader! Think _rationally_, and stop acting like an animal."

Draco actually _snarled_ at him, his farmiliar sneer arching up into something that showed more teeth and considerably more aggression. He spun away from Blaise, looking back over the wall. Blaise looked up at Victor, and Victor nodded. Getting to his feet, he brought one big fist heavily down on Draco Malfoy's dusty head. The blonde man crumpled to the stones without another sound.

Blaise got to his feet, clapping Victor on the shoulder and shouting into his ear. "You take him out the secret exit. I'll get help and find our hostages." Without turning around to see Victor hoist the unconscious Malfoy onto his shoulders, Blaise turned and sprinted off. He didn't have the luxury of being able to remain detached.

* * *

**A/N: alright! I know it's very rough, and I'm sorry, but I really wanted to post 18-20 together, and I wanted to post them before I forgot about them. Please let me know what you think! Hopefully 21 won't be too long in coming. **


	21. Chapter 21

Blaise found Laura, the fortress' chef, barking instructions from her post at the front steps of the keep. She knew the fortress better than anyone else, and she fell into step behind him after a few words of explanation. They sprinted into the fortress, Blaise leading the way.

(and)

Hermione and Hannah had come to a stop. Hermione had a strange impulse to yell, even though she knew that would kind of undermine their whole 'sneaking away' scheme. Still. The temptation was intense. Being stuck in a confined space while the sounds of an intense magical battle was still audible through the stones was making her feel just a bit crazy. The tunnel ended. Abruptly, and without a door. No wonder the stupid passageway was so dirty and dusty. No one _used_ it, because there was _only one way in or out of it. _

"Well," Hannah said quietly. "Shit."

(and)

Blaise led the way to Hermione and Hannah's rooms. It had seemed like a really bright idea to put them as far away from the activity of the rest of the keep, but he was realizing now that there were _a lot_ of stairs between him and the residential wing. Laura kept pace behind him easily and silently. Ugh. His legs were already burning, and they'd just cleared the first staircase up.

(and)

Hermione sat down heavily, her feet pressing against the dead end. "I guess the headboard passage was the wrong way to go."

"Mmm." Hannah mused. "I thought the closet one would be too obvious, and so _had _to be a dead end. I guess they outthought me there."

"Bastards," Hermione said glumly.

"Well… yeah." Hannah said, laughing a little. "Have you forgotten where we are?"

(and)

Blaise was getting very winded by the time they got to the second floor. But that floor, which held most of the offices of the Rebels, was packed with people running from room to room and just taking up space in the hallway. Truthfully, Blaise was happy to be stalled for a little bit. But he'd forgotten the steely determination of a woman who had to make meals on a regular basis for a whole keep full of wizards and witches. Laura tugged him into a side corridor, opening a door that Blaise couldn't remember seeing before she'd gotten to it. She gestured to him, and then pushed him through it. To his surprise, he discovered that this room had no floor.

(and)

Hermione kicked at the dead end. She didn't expect it to open. It was more to vent than anything else. Too bad the walls were made of stone, and the soles of her sneakers were very well-worn.

Hannah looked speculatively back up the passage as Hermione cradled her foot and swore. "I guess going back isn't an option. They'll certainly want to know where we are, once they get over the initial shock of being attacked."

Hermione looked up, pausing in her string of expletives to say "So, we stay in here until we die?"

"Would you rather be discovered in the middle of all this?"

Hermoine went back to cursing.

(and)

Blaise'd had all the breath knocked out of him when he hit the ground, and lay on the stone floor in a very embarrassing position for much longer than he would've liked, gasping like a fish. Laura landed beside him, stumbling a little, but somehow managing to keep her dignity intact. Blaise wheezed, and eyed her balefully. It would have been a more affective look if he hadn't been lying on his back, flushed and breathless. Laura grinned at him, standing up and swiping at the dirt on her pants.

(and)

Hermione stopped cursing, and tried to think. What was the sense of having a passage with only one outlet? Sure, old castles had their hidey-holes, but those were usually… hole shaped. Passages tended to _lead_ someplace. Hermione rocked forward onto her knees, bringing her wand up close to the stone in front of her. Hannah watched, but didn't comment. She knew that chatter and stupid questions weren't very helpful in situations like these.

Blaise eventually was able to stand up, brushing dust off his jacket and fuming.

"So, what was the point of _that_ adventure?"

"A very, very good shortcut." Laura said calmly, opening the only door leading out of the small room they'd jumped into. Blaise looked up at the door he'd come in through (_fell_ in through), far above his head. He sighed, and followed Laura.

(and)

Hermione had found it. She squinted at the corner between wall and dead-end ('faux wall' she'd termed it in her mind), and there was definitely some trace there. The end of the tunnel had been sewn together magically. Hermione grinned with satisfaction, and rocked back on her heels. Now. How to unsew the door?

(and)

Blaise was barely surprised to find that the door opened onto the top floor, even though the door he'd fallen through had been on the second floor.

"I really hate this place." He said dully, then picked up a loping jog, leading the way towards Hermione and Hannah's rooms. The wing was unnervingly silent. Most had probably gone to see what was going on, or hid. He hoped at least a few had remembered what to do in situations like this. Otherwise there wouldn't be much left of the Rebels. His and Laura's steps echoed, and for a moment he worried that Granger and Abbot would hear them. But then he realized that footfalls probably couldn't alarm them now, when the sounds of fighting had been reverberating around and through the whole fortress for almost three-quarters of an hour. Blaise wondered that it had been so short a time. It had seemed like he was in the middle of a battlefield for hours. But then, facing imminent death for prolonged periods can do that to a person's sense of time. Blaise didn't stop to chuckle over this. He just kept running. They were getting close to the hostage's rooms.

(and)

Hermione brought up her wand, finally, and extinguished the light. Hannah brought up her wand so that Hermione could see what she was doing. Hermione was intent on the wall, and didn't acknowledge it.

"Huh," she said meditatively. "Someone worked very hard to get this tunnel sealed off."

"Why didn't they just block it up in the normal way? Actually setting the stones in place?"

"No one thinks in straight lines up here." Hermione said reflectively, doing some subtle wandwork that was casting the stone wall with a faintly bluish glow. "I know I wouldn't, if I had to live up here for long."

Hannah laughed. Hermione flicked her wand, and the stone shifted slightly. Dust poured down onto Hermione's head and filled the passage, sending both of them into coughing fits.

When the dust cleared, Hannah looked up to see Hermione grinning under a thick layer of dust and dislodged dirt.

"Excellent!" Hermione breathed. "One layer done!"

Hannah sneezed, and tried to look enthusiastic. She hoped every layer didn't send grime shooting all over the place when it was undone.

(and)

Blaise stood in the doorway of Hermione Granger's room. He wasn't even surprised. Just annoyed. Why couldn't they have stayed _put?_ Laura came up behind him, and told him what he'd already guessed.

"Hannah Abbot's not in her room either."

"Where could they have gone?" Blaise asked, running a hand over his hair (decidedly less tidy now, having gone through running and falling and landing and more running). "They can't have gotten through the second floor unseen. _Someone_ would've recognized them."

Laura chewed on a fingernail, thinking. "I don't know about secret passages in this part of the castle. I haven't had much of an opportunity to look it over."

"And you can't look it over now?"

She shook her head. "Not if you want to catch up to them tonight."

Blaise meditated on this, one hand fiddling with the string attaching his coffee mug to his pants.

"Draco's got floor plans in his study." He said finally. "Let's go."

And they were off again. More running. Blaise really, _really_ hated this place.

(and)

Hermione unlocked another layer. More dust gushed down, but the two women were prepared.

(and)

Blaise ran, following Laura this time.

(and)

Hermione fiddled. Hannah couldn't understand how she could be so focused, drenched in dust and with the sounds of the fight (dulled, but still unnervingly discernable) all around them. But she was bright-eyed and smiling, and more than she ever had before, Hannah was reminded of Hermione as she'd been at school.

"Another layer!" Hermione announced (though the dust fall that came before the announcement had already clued Hannah in). "Not much further, now!"

(and)

Blaise and Laura flew down staircases, whipping around anyone in the hallways. Laura wasn't comfortable enough to try out any shortcuts to Draco's office, so they had to just run. They pressed through the mill of people on the second floor, struggling towards the hallway that led to Draco's room. Time was everything. Every second they spent waiting for a horde of shaken Russian wizards to collect themselves and get out of their way was another second Hermione and Hannah were able to get further away from the fortress.

(and)

Another dust shower. Hermione didn't even bother to cover her mouth and nose this time; she just bowed her head until the shower was done, and then went right back to work. The pair of them looked like golems now, crusted in dirt and dust. Hannah idled in the tunnel, feeling a little useless and a lot grimy.

"Only one more now, I think." Hermione said quietly. Hannah instantly stood straighter, watching as Hermione again bent her attention to the wall. Her heart was rabbiting around in her chest as she watched. Soon. She only hoped this tunnel didn't open into a sewer. But anyplace would be fine, as long as it was _away_.

(and)

Blaise and Laura made it to the office, quickly shutting the door behind them. Blaise quickly went over to a cabinet next to the big window, nudging piles of paper out of the way of the door with his foot. He got the door open, and started rummaging. Laura waited, eyes moving around the office.

(and)

The last dust shower. Hannah was almost happy to be swallowed in it. Hermione fiddled a little, than looked up and nodded. She got to her feet, and Hannah moved forward to set her shoulder against the stone. They braced themselves against the dirty floor, and started to push.

(and)

Blaise found the floor plans. "Here!" He said excitedly, putting them on Draco's desk. Laura came to stand next to him, and they both looked for the plans for the residential wing. The plans were very old, and very hard to read… Blaise hoped that Laura was having an easier time figuring out which set of squares with squiggly writing on it was the right one, because he sure wasn't…

Blaise looked up. He was sure he'd heard something. A sort of… scraping noise.

(and)

Hermione and Hannah pushed, as hard as they could, and the wall gave.

(and)

Blaise watched, mouth open, as a section of the wall fell forward, crushing a coffee table under it. After it tumbled a pair of very filthy figures, and a sea of dust and dirt.

It was Hermione and Hannah. Hermione looked up, a smile still on her face, and froze.

"Well." Blaise said, too shocked to smile (though he'd laugh heartily later) "Shit."

There was a moment of silence.

"_Shit." _Hannah said feelingly, struggling to her feet and grabbing at her wand.

"_Incarcerous," _Laura barked, and Hannah fell to the ground, struggling against the magical ropes that pinned her arms to her side.

Hermione was up by then. She pointed her wand at Laura, and the other woman's wand flew out of her hand. She turned to Blaise, but he'd already gotten his wand out.

"_Incarcerous!"_ Hermione was tied up tightly, and her wand clattered to the ground.

Blaise ran a hand through his hair, staring down at the two women with some mixture of relief and confusion. Laura went to get her wand. Hannah turned over to face Hermione. She opened her mouth in anticipation of some comment that could maybe lighten the mood, but nothing came to mind. They were finished now. Hannah tried to think of some way that this wouldn't end in their deaths, and kept coming up blank. Guilt swamped her. She was the field expert. She was the one who should've been able to save them from this. She looked at Hermione's filthy face and couldn't focus on anything but how it would be _all her fault _if Hermione Granger died. She tried to find _something_ to say that would ease Hermione's mind, something that might make the other woman feel better, but she had nothing.

Hermione looked at her, and smiled. "You are _filthy_." She said solemnly.

Hannah stared, and then laughed. "You don't look much better, alright?"

Laura turned to Blaise. "There's a way to the exit from here. There had to be, as it's his room." She turned to the window, and tapped the sill with her wand. It slid away with a sizeable part of the floor, revealing worn wooden steps spiraling down into very foreboding darkness.

Hannah sneezed. Hermione suppressed a giggle. Well, hysterics were better than panic or despair, right?

"You go in front," Blaise said, hoisting Hannah to her feet and then moving on to Hermione, collecting their wands as he went. "I'll follow behind and keep my wand on them."

Hermione almost thought of resisting. It was two and two, wasn't it? She'd faced much worse odds when she was in Hogwarts. Yeah, she didn't have a wand, but was it that important? Almost as if she knew what Hermione was thinking, Hannah caught her eye, grinned, and shook her head. Hermione thought of moving on her own, then, but thought better of it. Hannah was more used to these things, after all. And as she thought it, she suddenly felt very tired, and very useless. This had been crucial, hadn't it? Her time to maybe do something that would help. And all she'd done was break into _another _part of the fortress at _exactly _the wrong moment. What had she come out here for?

She followed Hannah down the stairs without making a fuss, thinking hard and getting nowhere. What had she come out here for?

* * *

**AN: An update? Seriously? It's true! Sorry for the horrible, horrible wait. This chapter's laid out a little strangely, but I just wanted to try something other than the little stars (*******) let me know what you think! And sorry again for the looong absense!**


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